Breathing In
by Montenya of the Fairies
Summary: Physically, there was nothing special about her birth. If her brain– and the number of souls inside– had been similarly unremarkable, then she would have lived a relatively decent, if short, life. Instead Yamanaka Sakura, born 23K, finds herself positioned to do so much more. Updating biweekly. Current arc: The Capital.
1. Year 1

Sakura Yamanaka was born the day the cherry blossoms bloomed. She was a bit late—she had been meant to arrive nearly two weeks before—but she was healthy and a good weight, if a bit larger than her mother would have preferred.

She was the eleventh child in her family, but she wouldn't know that for months.

Sakura's first weeks passed in a blur of sensations. She didn't really comprehend the passing time, and to a large extent she wasn't yet conscious. As the weeks pulled into months, however, that began to change.

There wasn't really a moment, a sudden sensation of _being_. Instead Sakura's consciousness developed over the hours, days, weeks; her ability to remember past sensations slowly improved, as did her ability to receive new ones, especially by sight. Her feelings about the world about her became stronger, and she suddenly found herself having a deep affection for the woman who could only be her mother as well as the various other caretakers that passed in and out of her life. She slowly began to realize that each of them spoke—made sounds in a certain order to convey messages—but that she had yet to understand the code.

Most importantly, she figured out that something was very, very wrong.

Because it wasn't just Sakura's thoughts in her head, and it wasn't just that at her age Sakura shouldn't be thinking at all. It was Arden's thoughts that were the problem.

Which was not to say they were much clearer than Sakura's own. In fact, at first it was impossible to tell the difference between the two. It was only as time passed that it became clear that some of her memories, some of her knowledge, and some of her awareness could not have come from this world.

This all, of course, took a backseat to real life. It didn't really matter that she (or Arden) knew how plants grew when she had not, despite her best efforts, managed to hold back her bladder and was therefore very, very uncomfortable.

Also sleep. Sleep was really nice, and (at least according to Arden) surprisingly easy to do in this body.

The older Sakura got, though, the more "Arden" began to fade. She'd already been, at best, half formed the first time Sakura thought of her as a separate entity, with huge chunks of her life missing and what little remained piecing itself together the best it could, but even that began to vanish, more and more of what Arden knew but Sakura didn't disappearing every day.

Neither particularly liked that.

In the end it was Arden who decided what to do next. Sakura was still swimming in and out of existence and even given the advanced abilities she did have thanks to her shared brain it wasn't _quite_ enough to actually form a plan, much less put it into action. Arden, fortunately, was still fully capable of that, so that was what she did.

Beginning when Sakura was about two months old, around the same time that she became fairly certain that kaa-san meant mother and that, given that the other, smaller humans around her used the same name to refer to her primary caregiver, she had siblings as well, Arden pulled her sharply away from the world.

Immediately her senses dulled and her ability to control her physical body all but disappeared.

In exchange her brain became capable of absorbing all the information that Arden threw at it rapid fire, only ever pausing to allow Sakura to sleep when it became too much. Her body, somehow, stayed alive despite her making no active effort to use it. Her mind, on the other hand, swelled.

Arden had started with a story, of all things, or at least something that her memories interpreted as such. It was of a boy named Naruto, and the story came in fragments, randomly jumping from one point to another with almost nothing in between. Sakura recognized some aspects of the story—one quick scene, which Arden could not fully recall, included the energy (chakra, apparently) that one of her brothers had used on her after she'd banged her wrist onto the edge of her mother's bedstand. The 'shinobi' running up and down walls was a common theme, too, and she was fairly sure she saw at least two of her siblings doing just that before she was pulled away from reality.

In the end, though, the story was still very incomplete, and quickly finished. Arden did not give Sakura much time to rest or take in what had already been given, however, instead pushing knowledge of an entire language—English—into her head, both to better understand the scenes she saw and would see, and because Arden seemed to have a deep and abiding respect for language, one she tried desperately to pass on to the consciousness that she shared a brain with.

After that came math, and biology, and chemistry, and psychology, and physics, and even more stories—some historical, others entirely made up, some parabolic, others simply meant to deepen her understanding of all that was possible. Interspersed throughout this was music and sculptures and paintings which danced in and out of focus, as if taunting Sakura to come nearer, to understand more.

 __At last Arden came to what she knew of anatomy, of physiology. Arden was nearly gone, by then; she'd spent as much time as she could giving Sakura information and scant traces of her memory—of times when she felt she succeeded, of times where she knew she failed—but she had yet to give the infant any time to understand any of it, and now there was nothing else left to give.

While her anatomical information had started out interspersed with the memories of her learning it, and the feelings associated with various parts (frustration, during a chapter she'd had particular difficulty memorizing; boredom, during another that she'd already learned in two previous situations) gradually began to disappear. By organ systems, because she'd started with the atom before growing in scale, there were no emotions. Sakura had barely been able to start integrating Arden's knowledge of medicine, which was to be shown next, when she was suddenly and forcefully pushed back into awareness and she knew at once Arden was gone.

She wailed.

Footsteps rushed towards her, and as she allowed them to do what little they could to comfort her, she took in her entirely novel environment, full of white walls instead of lilac, and a small basinet instead of her mother's bed. There were other babies in the room, too, Sakura thought, and adult people huddled around other beds, but it was hard to see beyond her tears, and so she simply cried, grasping onto the shirt of the man who held her.

She did not know how long it took her to fall asleep, but he never put her down, never stopped cooing and talking to her in a language she still didn't understand.

When she next woke up she was back in the basinet, but a familiar voice was singing a lullaby beside her. For the moment she forced her grief over Arden down, and instead turned towards the voice—towards her mother—and reached out, grasping with hands much larger than she remembered. The woman rushed forward and picked her up immediately, cooing and talking just like the man had. She called something behind her, and another man rushed in, different from the first, followed by two faces she vaguely remembered as her sister and brother.

They all circled around her, gasping and talking and touching, and the man began to cry quietly, holding back the sound in a way she never could. The woman, mother, passed her off to this unknown man, and she _did not like that did not like that did not like that_ but he held her the same way mother had and he pressed her ear to his heart and the sound was nice and anyway, hadn't she been awake for long enough?

It took at least another week for her consciousness to get a grasp on what was happening, interspersed between liberal amounts of napping and all too many unfamiliar faces looking and touching and talking.

Her consciousness's main takeaway was this: she was in the hospital. Apparently, at least as far as she could figure, upon her sudden and inexplicable lack of reaction to anything she'd been shuttled here, and over the course of what she guessed to be over a month (based solely on the temperature and Arden's memories of her own seasons, which admittedly wasn't the best source) she was kept under constant observation, the room she was living in being presumably for that exact purpose.

She wasn't as bad as some others, of course—about two thirds of the infants in the room were hooked up to some kind of monitoring system, and nearly all of them were younger than her—but that didn't really stop her mother from acting so, so relieved every time she opened her eyes, or tried to grab at a finger, or really did anything.

It was honestly quite nice to be the center of attention, especially because whenever that wasn't the case she tended to be overcome with a sudden gripping fear that it would never be true again.

This went away whenever her mother reentered her vision, but it was still not a pleasant sensation.

In other news, she was fairly sure she was a Yamanaka. Her mother was blond with the same odd eyes as the Ino of Arden's memories, and all of the faces that called her Kaa-san, besides the adult man who now appeared almost daily, shared a similar look. The man (quite possibly her father, actually—she thought she saw him and Kaa-san kiss once) was a brunette, but he had the eyes too.

So there was that.

Mostly, though, Sakura spent very little of the day trying to extrapolate on Arden's information. Most of it was spent trying to interact with the world around her—spending so long stuck in her own mind made her itch for a change, and so she would squirm and kick and grab and babble, forcing the flood of knowledge to the back of her mind, to be ignored until much, much later. As she gradually grew used to faces other than Kaa-san's, she began to truly appreciate that at least one of her siblings, or her father, (tou-san?), would spend a little of every day playing with her and bringing her new toys (the small box that held them next to her hospital bassinet was now full to the point of overflowing, and the people would frequently grab a few of the toys—never the ones they had brought—and put them in other babies' baskets so there was room in hers for their own gift.) (They also seemed to snipe at each other when caught in this practice, which Sakura found hilarious.)

Beyond that, she had recently figured out how to roll over, which was a blast, if tiring. She was working on sitting up next, less because it was the next milestone according to Arden's memories and more because she wanted to reach the toys on her own, and figured that would be the best way forward.

She was also, kind of, beginning to figure out some of the words—manma, she thought, meant food, and she'd taken to trying to scream it when hungry. It was not going well, but at least her caretakers seemed to understand what she was trying to say. She'd also figured out some of her siblings' names—she was fairly sure that she had a genin brother named Ren, and another, slightly younger, brother named Aoi.

By the end of the month she was moved out of the hospital, and back to her house, but not to her mother's bed. Instead she found herself sharing a crib with a girl about a year older than her, with two short beds taking up much of the rest of the room, each holding a child each—a girl she would place at about four, and another who held up seven fingers when babbling a hello to Sakura.

The next major shift in Sakura's life did not come for another three months. Over the course of those months she managed to learn how to sit up and crawl and taken to the action with such tenacity that her mother had had to institute a rule about sharp objects after Sakura was found on the floor above her room trying to grab a kunai off her brother Ren's desk. She may have become somewhat of a kleptomaniac. Also she learned how to throw things, so that was cool (her brother Kamui really hadn't expected to be pelted with grapes, but she'd found it hilarious.)

Her speech had improved by then, and while none of the sounds she could make really amounted to words, she was able to generally discern what others were saying (so long as they spoke slow enough and she knew what words they were using), so she considered that progress.

She'd also managed to figure out her entire family. Kaa-san stayed at home, though Sakura was fairly sure she was a shinobi, while Tou-san was frequently on missions, and would disappear for months at a time (he left about a week after she'd been taken home, and had yet to come back.) Her oldest brother, fourteen year old Ren, was a genin, as was her twelve year old sister Sayuri. The next oldest was Aoi, who was eleven and _not a girl_ no matter how long his eyelashes were.

Then came the 'fake twins', her brothers Kaede and Kamui, nine and eight respectively but physically identical in nearly every other way. They were followed by a set of real twins, Sakura's sister Akina and brother Arato, who were as different as could be (Akina being far more masculine and Arato preferring typically feminine disciplines.) Sakura shared her room with Akina as well as her sister Ayame, who was five, and Kohana, who was one. Between them in age was a boy, Fujio, who shared his room with the fake twins and Arato. Ren and Aoi shared a room, and Sayuri had the smallest as her own, but Ren was moving soon—he wanted to live on his own immediately after his chunin promotion, so Kaa-san was helping him prepare.

So up until she reached seven months things had been going fairly well if, thankfully, quite mundanely. This was brought to an end by the Chunin exams.

Ren, as Sakura had already figured out, was going to be participating in them, and that they were taking place in Konoha meant the entire family was heading out in support, which meant her mother was dragging ten children between the ages of twelve years and seven months through hoards of onlookers. Thankfully, she had help from the rest of the clan. Unfortunately, most were doing the exact same thing.

Eventually, though, they made their way into the stadium. It didn't look the same as Arden's memories—it was smaller, for one, and the majority of the onlookers seemed to be Konoha natives. The competitors, on the whole, also seemed to be slightly younger—her brother, the two genin he was standing next to, and about five of the other competitors looked to be about the same age, but the other half were all decidedly younger.

It was the younger competitors that were the problem. As Sakura tried to ignore the noise and bustle and screaming around her, she had squinted into the arena to make out the faces that she may have to watch attack Ren in the next few minutes. Most were unrecognizable. Three weren't.

There, about four or five meters away from Ren, stood Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade.

Sakura squeaked.

"Hush, Sakura-chan." Her mother murmured. "It's just a bit of noise. It won't hurt you."

Well actually, Sakura thought, Orochimaru proved pretty indisputably that that wasn't the case. That it had happened in what was now clearly the future was none of her concern.

(What was more concerning was that she had been trying to block Arden's memories, and yet clearly some had leaked through. Still, it wasn't that bad, so long as it didn't disrupt her day to day life. She pushed back her other concerns—her concerns of _death_ and _terror_ and wrong—past her mental barrier. She was not ready for them.)

The Hokage was speaking now—his face the same as the Hokage of Arden's memories. He was talking about peace, and strength, and other words that remained meaningless. Sakura's head hurt. She didn't want to think of the life-altering children below her, or the danger her brother was in, or the words she couldn't understand, or the noise that encompassed them all. She began to whine and squirm, but her mother shushed her again, running through a few one handed seals. The world went blissfully silent, and Sakura closed her eyes.

She was shaken awake what felt like mere moments later by her sibling's jostling. She rubbed her eyes and peered toward the battleground, trying to find out what was exciting them. The scorch marks, wet spots, and overall disrepair of the field was evidence enough that she'd already slept through at least one battle, so she wondered why this one had them so excited.

Oh right.

Her brother.

Ren stood with his hair drawn back in the traditional blond ponytail. He wore purple, the color of their clan, and held kunai in each hand. The girl across from him was clearly an Akimichi—his teammate, if Sakura remembered correctly; she was fairly sure she'd met both of them about a month ago, at Akina and Arato's birthday.

If Arden's memories were correct, this wasn't a good matchup. The Akimichi, after all, were known to be front line fighters—a kind of specialty that worked all too well in this kind of exam. Yamanaka, on the other hand, were known to be great support. Not exactly ideal in this scenario.

Her siblings were screaming beside her, but she couldn't hear them. Across from her, on Sayuri's lap, a discomfited Kohana was trying desperately to get off the energetic girl. Kaa-san, at least, wasn't outright vibrating in glee, but she was leaning far enough forward that Sakura was compelled to lean with her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but felt a pinch. Letting out a yelp, she whipped around to find Aoi staring straight at her. He pointed to the battlefield, then went back to watching himself.

Was… was she meant to watch? 

She glanced around at her siblings' faces. Each and every one, from Fujio up anyway, was riveted to the battle, and Kohana's head was also turned to the battle, however unwillingly.

She was meant to watch. She wondered why.

So she watched.

As she expected, it did not take long for the battle to begin going the Akimichi's way. She hadn't ballooned up yet—perhaps only the future Akimichi could do that?— but she was a fearsome opponent anyway, attacking and grappling and doing all she could to put the battle in close quarters.

Ren, on the other hand, was doing everything he could to stay away from her. He threw kunai at a mile a minute, sprinting across the field from one side to another as fast as his admittedly short stature would let him. Every once and a while, in a particularly desperate situation, he'd even use a small jutsu to make the ground erupt from under him, giving him an additional boost.

But the Akimichi would not be deterred.

She'd managed to hit him only twice so far, but each had had their impact—he didn't seem to be capable of moving his left arm very fast, and (according to an increasingly panic-y Kaa-san, who had rudely removed the silence jutsu so that she could hear the battle), his breathing did not look good.

Until, that is, the entire battlefield collapsed. A pit, several meters down, grew startlingly fast from the center of the field, quickly encompassing all but a meter on each side. Ren had clearly been expecting it. The Akimichi had not. She fell with the earth, landing hard at the bottom, and Ren didn't waste any time, immediately beginning a long series of hand signs before pointing straight at the Akimichi. A stream of electricity arced across the air straight at his opponent, and several seconds after he let up and the Akimichi still hadn't moved the match was called in his favor.

Fujio, positioned on the other side of Aoi, began to cry, as did a number of her other siblings.

Kaa-san was saying something, but Sakura couldn't make it out, too befuddled by the roar of the crowd and her screaming siblings. When her mother pointed at the field, however, she forced herself to look down again.

In the middle of the field, surrounded by a couple chunin who were fixing the worst of it, two medics were slowly bringing the Akimichi to her feet, and while she had to lean heavily on both, she was able to make it out of the arena on her own feet.

Fujio did not look all that comforted. Sakura was inclined to agree. She buried her face in kaa-san's stomach. She was not looking forward to seeing children fight, and neither of the next two contestants could be older than eight, so she closed her eyes until it was her brother's turn again.

Ren lost his next battle to Jiraiya and, like the Akimichi, was promptly whisked away with too many injuries to feel good about. The family, to Sakura's disappointment, stayed until the end, when a ferocious battle between the six or seven year old Jiraiya and Orochimaru (another that had seen her silence taken away) found the latter the victor. Sakura fell asleep for good soon after, and only awoke the next day to Ren jostling her awake and shoving green fabric in her face—the chunin vest—before doing the same to Kohana. She guessed he got promoted then.

Besides the excitement of the exams, however, and the hard work she had had to do to shove Arden's related memories away, the rest of the year to her birthday passed relatively sedately. Ren moved out, of course, and mother found herself pregnant again. Aoi now shared a room with the fake twins, while Arato now only shared with Fujio. Sayuri was also made to share with Akina, who had complained about being stuck in the baby's room even more than Arato. Sakura herself grew by leaps and bounds—she was now able to crawl onto any of the shorter seats in the house, and could even walk if she was careful to have a handhold within reach. She'd also managed to figure out how to eat both finger foods and spoon foods by herself, which she was quite proud of. She'd started calling Kaa-san 'mama' like Kohana did, because it was much easier to pronounce, and she could generally get out the first syllable of everyone else's name. She could also ask for food, cuddles, and help with something. She could also say no, a power which she used liberally.

Kohana, too, was improving substantially—while her understood vocabulary was about the same as Sakura's own, she was able to talk more than Sakura could currently hope for, even if none of it could yet be considered sentences. Most importantly, all this improvement meant she got her own bed, which doubled the space Sakura was able to occupy and meant she didn't have to deal with bumpy elbows in her sleep anymore—Sakura was fairly sure she was more excited about Kohana's bed than Kohana.

Beyond that Ayame', Kamui', and Ren's birthdays (both Sayuri's and Kaede's taking place exactly one week after her own) proved great opportunities for meeting new Yamanaka, Akimichi, and Nara, which made it all too clear that Arden had been right about what world she'd been born in, even if not one face (beyond, of course, those all too fleetingly seen in the chunin exams) matched a memory.

The falling of the cherry blossoms marked a year passed, and Sakura breathed in their smell willingly, her mind undeveloped enough that she could not truly understand the impact of what she knew.

At least not yet.


	2. Year 2

Sakura's development began to skyrocket shortly after her birthday. Continued practice allowed her to speak, and immediately after she began to talk non-stop (a not uncommon reaction in the Yamanaka family, apparently.) Before long she'd overtaken Kohana in ability, managing to string together three or four words easily even if the grammar was more than a little questionable. She'd also taken to 'exploring' or 'running away', depending on who you asked, and had quickly met all of her immediate neighbors and tried to make friends with every person, animal, and plant she encountered. In the midst of that goal she'd found a swing set which included a swing for someone her age, and now spent a good chunk of every day trying to convince one of her older siblings to take her to swing on it. She had also crawled out of her crib enough that her own bed was placed right where it used to be.

This had led to a rather sharp change in how she was treated, one that Kohana felt at the same time. Their days were no longer solely about playing for hours on end; instead, Kaa-san would teach them how to catch and throw balls, would have them race each other in the field behind their house, and would teach them hand signs, even if she clearly didn't expect them to be able to preform them any time soon.

Both were also trained how to use the potty beside each other, and were no longer allowed to call out in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency. Their grammar was corrected too, nearly constantly, and they were expected to ask for something before they could get it, no matter what it was.

In this Sakura and Kohana quickly found themselves bonding. Kohana would frequently slip into Sakura's bed when she woke up scared, and Sakura would always bring whatever shiny new object she found to Kohana for identification purposes (her mother, for some reason, always seemed more concerned about where she got it than what its name was.)

Their sharp difference in size did not seem to bother Kohana, so Sakura did not let it bother her. It did, however, bother Fujio quite a bit. At three he was noticeably taller, more coordinated, and more coherent than either of them, but as they both sprinted forward on the developmental chain, they began taking part more in more in Fujio's lessons, while his former partner, the five year old Ayame, was being prepared to be sent to school in a few months with a few of their other clansmen.

Fujio didn't like this. He would frequently steal both of their toys, and was very upset over 'his' time with Kaa-san being taken away, especially given how close the new baby was to arriving. Kaa-san disciplined him, of course, and Fujio would always say sorry (and to a large extent mean it), but Sakura could see that the rapidity of their development also scared him. Kaa-san talked to him each time he did something mean, though, so Sakura did not let it bother her.

And anyway, Kohana was much more interesting.

When Sakura was fourteen months old the baby was born.

Kaa-san went to the hospital to have her sixth daughter, Himari, and didn't leave for four months. Instead, the ten of them that still lived at home moved in with their Aunt Hina.

Sakura cried.

A lot.

Arden's passed on memories and awareness helped some, of course—plus she'd been told that her mother would come back when she could, and that she knew she'd met her aunt before and liked her, but it was _hard_ in a way that was difficult to explain. Kaa-san was Sakura's anchor, and her anchor was gone.

The middle of summer brought the next semester of the academy, and with it some changes. First, Sayuri moved out. She was thirteen, she proclaimed, and she and her friend Yua Nara were perfectly capable of affording an apartment between them. Sakura thought it had more to do with how she now not only shared her room with Akina, but also Aunt Hina's two oldest daughters, one of which had a massive crush on Sayuri's boyfriend, and the other who hated the cramped living conditions almost as much as Sayuri herself. Second, Aoi dropped out of the academy. Something felt… wrong about that, especially given that he'd shown no uncertainty about becoming a shinobi before, but she and the rest of her siblings were warned not to question it. Instead he became an apprentice to a merchant, and that was that. He also moved out, theoretically to be closer to his work.

Beyond that Kaede, Kamui, Akina, and Arato each stayed in the academy, Ayame joining them. Only Kamui was thinking of quitting, and Kaa-san apparently asked him to tough it out for one more semester before making his decision.

In terms of those left at home throughout the day, Fujio's behavior had deteriorated rapidly enough that they put him with the upcoming academy students in the hope that his poorer showing would either cause him to mellow out or force him to work hard enough to keep up. Kohana and Sakura, on the other hand, were taught alongside Aunt Hina's youngest, a set of twin boys who, while jealous, did not see the same decline in behavior as Fujio had.

Life went on.

It wasn't until September that Kaa-san returned home, holding a four month old bundle named Himari as she did. Tou-san was beside her, and while he was nearly unrecognizable to Sakura and Kohana, the older children greeted him quite amicably and the entire family had soon made their beds in their own house once more—with the exception of the three oldest, of course, but they still made a regular point of visiting.

That night each child clamored to tell both Kaa- and Tou-san their life stories, and Sakura smiled as she watched her parents laugh and try to get only one of them to speak at a time. She enjoyed hearing about Ren's plumbing issues and his new girlfriend (the daughter of the plumber, surprisingly enough.) She giggled at Sayuri's drawn out explanation over her break up with Yuma Inuzaka, and how she couldn't believe she'd dated him in the first place. While Aoi remained quiet, Sakura still appreciated seeing him, and her parents clearly felt the same—they obviously knew what was going on, even if Sakura didn't.

Kaede begged for help studying for academy finals, and Kamui talked about an Akimichi restaurant that was willing to offer him an apprenticeship. Akina moaned about having to take Kunoichi classes, and Arato moaned about not being allowed to take them. Ayame moaned about everything and everything, but mostly about how school was boring and her classmates sucked. Kaa-san clicked her tongue at that, and Tou-san warned her that her opinions would probably change in the coming years.

Fujio, surprisingly, was in an amazing mood, and described in great detail all he was learning from Uncle Haruto, and how Uncle Haruto thought he may be able to enter that winter if Tou-san and Kaa-san agreed. (They said they'd think about it)

Finally it was Kohana and Sakura's turn, and they went back and forth explaining every little thing they'd said and done over the past few months ("and then I saw a caterpillar!", "and I found a centipede the next day!"), which, by the end of it, had them dubbed fake twins version '2'

"More to do with personality than looks in your case, I'd say!" Tou-san had laughed. After all, the first set of fake twins—Kaede and Kamui—may have looked identical, but below the surface they were as different as could be.

The next day, after Kohana' and Sakura's wake up time at eight (a time that would slowly decrease to five thirty as they neared academy age even if their bedtime, 20:00, remained the same), Tou-san took the two of them out to a field to test their progress.

"Alright, girls. Now, I know your mother is a bit better at fighting than me, but I'm not without my uses. Today we're going to go over all the physical basics you'll be expected to know before you enter the academy. Don't worry, though—there's no rush, I just thought you'd like an overview."

That was… unexpected. Sakura was fairly sure that Fujio hadn't been given this opportunity.

Tou-san first went over all the muscle groups, most of which was review from Arden's memories, but with different names. He then went over their physical fitness requirements. They were to be able to sprint at at least a minimum speed 25 times in a row and run a mile at a slightly slower speed (though Tou-san did not mention what the speeds were), they were to be able to complete at least 15 curl ups, push-ups, and other stretches each (Tou-san showed them all, but only named a few, and Arden's memories did not include most of them), and prove they could hang of a rail for a certain length of time. Beyond that, Yamanaka standards also emphasized the ability to perform a number of acrobatic feats, including tumbles and hand-stands, as well as being able to imitate the beginning kata of the clan technique and successfully form the shapes for each hand sign, and hit the target at least one out of ten times with both a kunai and shuriken.

While Sakura did not know why her father was showing her and Kohana all of this, its immediate effect was exciting the two girls as much as the pre-academy lessons had Fujio—they spent the rest of the time they were supposed to spend training imitating Tou-san to the best of their ability, and allowing him to pick them up and kiss their bruises when they failed.

After that, however, another modification came, this one to their schedule. Generally, training time was from nine to eleven thirty every day, followed by an hour of lunch and play and a half hour of cleaning. At around one they would be taught manners for about half an hour, followed by another hour of play, then half an hour of family history (which was really just memorizing a giant chart with all the Yamanaka's names on it), followed by another hour of play, followed by a half hour of math, followed by more play, followed by half an hour to an hour of reading (her older siblings were put in charge of this portion, and varied wildly in how much time and effort they were willing to put in), followed by play until dinner, getting ready for bed, and being put to sleep.

Apparently this was all to change.

After a longer than usual etiquette class, when Kohana and Sakura turned to rush out as usual, their mother's hands on their shoulders stilled them. Instead they were led back into their seats, and family history began immediately. After another longer than usual history class, when Sakura's eyes began to droop and Kohana's weren't doing much better, they were finally allowed time to play.

As she and Kohana built a world out of sticks where each clan actually consisted of the animal they felt represented them—the Nara deer, Yamanaka crane, Akimichi cow, Senju monkey, and Uchiha cat among them—Sakura tried to figure out why they seemed to be being pushed faster now. As far as she knew there was no war going on, and her parents had not seemed to mind Kamui's plan to drop out at the end of the semester _too_ much, so why was her and Kohana's workload suddenly increasing?

After an hour their play was interrupted again, this time for a longer session of math followed by an equally long session involving plants, a matter which hadn't been touched on yet.

Once more, only after about an hour and a half passed they were given a break, and once more, that break only lasted an hour. By then it was dinner time, and Sakura put her musings aside for the night.

By the end of the following week, though, it was all too clear what her parents were doing. Her development, in the months before and the month following her first birthday, had been almost miraculously fast as she picked up and used every piece of knowledge anyone gave her, gratefully pushing Arden's overwhelming amount of information back with bits and pieces actually relevant in her day to day life. Once she started to be taught with Kohana, however, she faltered, and her development eventually slowed to match her sister's—why would she keep trying hard, after all, when she could maintain the same level of learning and gain a best friend along the way? It hadn't been a conscious decision, a planned out process that started with purposefully flubbing a run and ended with her intentionally dumbing down her grammar to the point of near incomprehensibility, but the end result was the same.

And somehow her parents had figured it out.

So the increase in training, the increasingly short amount of time in the day that was solely for play? That was for her benefit, not Kohana's. As the week passed Kohana began to fall behind more and more, finding it difficult to try to keep that level of knowledge in her head and therefore not bothering to try in the first place. Sakura, though, was unable to hide her understanding of the material for too long, and soon the gap between the two girls began to grow.

By the time the last leaves had fallen from the tree Kohana and Sakura's lessons had separated entirely, with Kohana's mimicking what they'd had before their parents came back and being taught by Tou-san, while Sakura took one-on-one (with baby Himari providing much needed breaks) lessons with Kaa-san.

Upset with this shift, and desperate to find something to comfort her, Sakura turned to Arden's memories as relief.

In the past twenty months, her entire lifetime, Sakura had not once deliberately touched the mass of information that had been foisted upon her. Some of it leaked out, both in the initial flood and over time—bones and muscles and how they worked one day, a picture of a smiling red headed girl the next, then how to measure slope, then the legendary sannin and so on—but she had to a certain extent been able to shield herself from the majority of it and seal whatever did come out back in whenever she could.

It was just such a daunting project, the lifetime of memories. Arden, she knew, had been twenty when she died. The difference between twenty months and twenty years of memories was substantial, and Sakura did not trust herself capable of dealing with the mountain when she was already having problems with the mole hill.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, and when Sakura was told to be awake at 7:30 while Kohana was allowed to stay asleep until 8:30? Those were desperate times. She needed more understanding of the situation than what her current mind was capable of, so it was time to see what the remnants of Arden's could do. Carefully, achingly slowly, she let down her mind's barriers.

Sakura stifled a scream. She probably should have planned this out better, so she wasn't inexplicably freaking out in the middle of her afternoon nap (not technically scheduled, but always taking place during a playtime regardless.) Her mother rushed towards her, picking her up and asking what was wrong as Himari cried for the rest of her feeding in the corner. Tears pricked Sakura's eyes—it was _too much too much too much_ and she didn't know how to explain, how to stop this flood of information and thoughts and feelings from taking over and it was _too much too much too much why isn't it stopping why won't it stop why why why_ (how had she forgotten that Arden had removed all physical sensations when she did this? How did she think this was a good idea?) and no matter what she did it wouldn't _STOP,_ wouldn't even _SLOW DOWN—_

Sakura opened her eyes to a white ceiling.

She shifted, turning sideways. She was back in the hospital, but in a new room—one with cribs for older children. Through the walls of her cage she could see her parents and a doctor, the same one as last time, talking, though she couldn't make out any words. Sayuri was passed out in a chair beside the crib, with one hand hanging limply inside, and some of Sakura's favorite toys were scattered around the small mattress. She hoped she'd not gone into a coma again—she was fairly sure that was what had happened last time—but it didn't look like she had. Sayuri looked the same, at least.

"Hi Sayuri…" Sakura mumbled. It was hard for her to talk, her exhaustion making any movement an effort, but she was happy she'd spoken when her sister jerked awake and grabbed her in a sweeping movement, snuggling her to her chest.

"Oh, Sakura. Why are you always unwell?" She mumbled. Her movement had caught their parents' and the doctor's attention, and now they huddled over Sakura while the doctor checked her reflexes and shone a light in her eye.

"She looks fine now… exhausted, perhaps, but otherwise fine. Sakura, sweetheart, can you tell us what happened?"

"Too much." Sakura said. The doctor was talking very loudly, so she didn't really want to answer, but maybe if she did he would leave and she could snuggle and sleep again.

"What was too much?" The doctor asked.

"Everything."

She fell asleep before he had time to respond.

When she woke again it was to an argument between her doctor and her parents. Sayuri was gone but Kaede was there, resolutely ignoring the raised voices and instead trying to read through a textbook.

"—the best option! You keep saying that like—like you have any proof! Do you understand what you're asking us to do?!" That was Kaa-san's shouting.

"I understand your worry, but—" That must be the doctor.

"Our worry?! Our worry?! In one breath you are telling us that chakra sensing put her into this mess, and in the next you are saying you want to force her to sense chakra!"

"The problem," the doctor sighed (Sakura was fairly sure this wasn't his first time explaining this), "is that your daughter keeps on accidently triggering her chakra sense at an age where she has no capacity to deal with it, realizing she is unable to cope with the new sensations, and forcing it to shut down through a coma. This is not a healthy way of dealing with it, and if we can force her chakra sense to turn on without allowing her to force it off by blacking out then your daughter will be able to figure out how to cope with it, and turn it off in a less worrying way."

"Can't—can't you just turn it permanently off?" Kaa-san asked. "Make her never have to deal with the pain?"

"If I could I would." The doctor said. "But that would be shutting off part of her chakra, which always comes with incredibly severe side effects. This really is the best way forward, the one which will see Sakura in the least pain overall. Not to mention, it would be best to do this now—children as young as she is usually lose most of their memories from this age, which would improve the chances that she doesn't remember this incident at all."

"She's a child genius." Sakura's father muttered. "I think she'll remember it."

They left the room.

Sakura stared at the ceiling. Her crib didn't have a mobile, but both of the ones bordering hers did, and she flicked her eyes back and forth, trying to decide if she liked the abstract one with simple painted metal shapes or the one with a half dozen wooden animals better.

Kaede began to snore. Sakura didn't think he was reading the textbook anymore.

She carefully sat up. She felt fine, though there was a tube connected to her right arm which was slightly uncomfortable. She thought about pulling it out but decided not to.

Instead she turned to her stuffed caterpillar, Dog (she'd found it funny, at least), and made it march across the crib edge. "I a hungry caterpillar and I eat…"

She looked at the rest of her toys before grabbing her stuffed monkey, Carrot. "I eat Carrot!" She mashed her two toys together and laughed. "Then Carrot try eat me!"

"They're… trying to eat each other?" Kaede asked. Oops. It looks like she woke him up. Oh well, at least this way they could play.

"You be Carrot." She said, thrusting the monkey at him. "I be Dog." Kaede blinked at her. Sakura couldn't quite remember if he'd been introduced to her odd style of naming before, but she couldn't bring herself to care. It was time for Dog to get his meal. "I a hungry caterpillar!" Sakura shouted, and attacked. Kaede huffed affectionately, but dutifully held the monkey as if he was fighting back.

The next time she woke up she wasn't hooked up to anything anymore but she was in a different room and Kaa-san was holding her and crying. Sakura peered around the small room as the adults continued to speak.

"How long will this take?" Her father asked.

"We don't really know." The doctor said.

"Is… is this really where it's…" Her mother stuttered.

"We're in a training field that's known for low chakra content." The doctor explained. "It would be best not to overwhelm her."

The room was plain—six sides of white, with a door on one breaking up the monotony and an odd table in the middle, with boxes stored underneath. Against her will Sakura was lifted from her mother and placed on the table by the doctor, before he pulled something out from beneath the table—an odd blanket.

Sakura's mother gasped, but Sakura couldn't figure out what it was. She thought that Arden might know, but she also really didn't want to try to use the memories again, so she just stared at it curiously as the doctor wrapped it around her. That is, she stared at it curiously until he actually began to strap it into place. She squirmed, annoyed, as all possible movement for her arms and legs were restricted, and began to whine as a different odd series of straps held her head in place.

"Oh, I know, I know, honey." Her mother cooed. "I know, I know."

"It'll all be over soon." Her father added. The doctor made a skeptical noise which did little to comfort Sakura and her father eyed him angrily. "We'll be with you the whole time." 

"Alright," The doctor said. Sakura noticed for the first time that he was a Yamanaka, though the straight blond hair and odd Yamanaka eyes should have been a giveaway. "I'm going to partially open her first gate, so she can't fall unconscious, and then I'll unlock her natural sensory ability."

Sakura had not stopped crying.

"Let's begin."

The doctor touched her head with two fingers, and closed his eyes in concentration. Sakura yelped as a prickling sensation began to invade her brain, and as much as she tried to shuffle away from it she could not. Another sensation, this one more searing, took over, but it disappeared quickly as a sudden rush of—something—made every part of her body feel stuffed, as if it were about to explode. She scrunched her eyes shut and began to scream, barely feeling as the doctor took his fingers off and reapplied them to the base of her neck, absorbed as she was with needing to release the pent up energy inside her, and having no way to do it.

Then—

When Sakura tried to access Arden's memories, it felt as if she was holding a piece of paper with a hole she wanted the water to exit through against a waterfall of information. This? This felt more like holding that same paper against an _ocean_.

Her screaming became shrill, and did not stop until her voice was gone, and even then she still tried to make noise, tried to convey how much this hurt, tried to get it to end because it was _too much too much too much too much too much too much why why why why why why why too much why too much why too much stop stop stop stop too much stop why stop too much why why stop please please stop too much why—_

The sensation ended.

"We'll continue tomorrow." A man's voice said, and then she was unconscious.

It took a while, after she was born, for Sakura to get a sense of time. When she finally had it, a significant portion of her energy was spent protecting that knowledge, and using it whenever possible. The ability to tell time—to tell how long something takes, when something will be, what the daily schedule is like—was one that Sakura found infinitely useful, and therefore carried close to her chest as one of her crowning achievements (because getting that far had in no way been easy, especially given the difficulty of even counting up to twenty four.)

That achievement was gone.

Sakura had no idea how much time passed between that first miserable day and the next time she regained consciousness. All she knew was the pain interspersed in between. She didn't remember being fed, or changed, or bathed. She didn't remember where she was, or who she was with, or why she was there. The pain, the all-consuming pain, took up her entire attention and left time for nothing else—not even time itself.

As this went on, though, the pain slowly began to lessen. Slowly the overwhelming amount of sensation at every side began to dissipate as she formed walls against its torrential power, and many of the signals constantly being sent to her brain began to go away. The longer she spent in pain the more conditioned she became to the sensations, until at last it was only the three things that actually moved and changed around her that still caused her head to feel as if it was being carved in half, and even that was slowly dissipating, slowly being blocked by her new mental wall.

There was a man's voice, humming, she noticed one time. The next time she was coherent she felt a hand rubbing her brow, cleaning the sweat from it. As she slowly returned to awareness she also began to scream less, her blood-curdling (if entirely silent) cries eventually becoming full body heaves, then whimpering, then simple tears.

"Oh, Sakura." Her mother said the first time she stopped crying. The man—the evil, evil man—had stopped the sensations for a little while, and the end of the misery allowed her to finally take in her parents' faces.

They weren't doing well.

Her mother's long blond hair looked as if it didn't know what a brush was, and her eyes were so bloodshot they were nearly red. Her clothes, too, were the same as Sakura remembered her wearing last time, but she was fairly sure that wasn't just because it was the same day. Beside her mother stood her father, whose clean shaven face now sported stubble and whose generally cropped brown hair now danced along the tips of his ears. His hand was on her foot, she noticed, and her mother's was cupping her head—shaved bald, apparently. She wondered when that happened.

"Mama. Chichi." Sakura got out.

"Sakura." Her father moaned.

"It is time to start again." The evil man in the corner said, and her mother began to cry.

However long it took for her to become used to the constant sensory overload, it did happen, and to her surprise Sakura found herself (with her sensing thankfully off) being lead out of the building shortly after the first time she made it through a session without any tears at all.

"We'll need regular appointments," the doctor was saying, "but I'll suggest one of my colleagues for that. I fear her memories of me won't be very pleasant. I'd also suggest letting her take it easy for the next three or so months—say until her third birthday. Let her recover and try not to strain her in any way at first, then slowly begin working up to what you had her doing before this happened. You have to remember that she didn't open her chakra sense because it was too much—the two were likely completely unconnected." 

Mama and chichi made the appropriate noises, but it was clear they were barely listening. Sakura hoped the evil man was writing down whatever it was if it was important. She didn't want him to have a single excuse to see her ever again.

By the time they made it home it was well past dark, and most of her siblings were fast asleep. After a short bath, she was carefully put in her own bed and tucked in.

"Sleep well, little Sakura." Her mother said. Her father kissed her forehead, and they lingered at the door before abruptly disappearing. Sakura sighed and closed her eyes. Perhaps now she could get a good night's rest.


	3. Year 3

The rest of Sakura's second year of life went rather calmly, for the most part. Ren and his girlfriend moved in together and much of his old apartment's things were now stored in various bedrooms, Sayuri got a field promotion after her team caught three chunin at the same time, Aoi left on a 'trip', Kaede made genin, Kamui started his apprenticeship at the restaurant, Akina and Arato managed to successfully pretend to be each other for nearly three months during kunoichi lessons with no one noticing, Fujio entered the academy, and Kohana _really really_ missed her.

As for Sakura? She kept a tight lid on Arden's pandora box of information, as well as her own chakra's similar box of sensation, and took it easy. In fact, for the first month she didn't even have to worry about lessons—it was only as she began to find the energy to do things that she was explicitly sold not to do that classes made their way into her schedule once more. Still, life was good.

And her birthday? That was great.

Sakura had, by two, been able come up with a very strong list of things she did and did not like (anything sugary was good. Anything bitter was not. Citrus was to be avoided, breads were to be consumed whole. Etc.) and on her birthday the Akimichi members in attendance made sure to gift her every meal she could ever want. There were people, too, in all different shapes and sizes—she ran around meeting them and talking to them and playing with them eagerly, all too willing to be consumed in a good kind of sensory overload to care at all about what abandoning a game with a Nara mid-turn due to boredom looked like.

She adored her birthday, even if they'd already had to do similar events in the previous months for Kohana and Ayame and Kamui and, in the coming week, would have Sayuri' and Kaede's birthday to celebrate, followed by little Himari's two months later. But parties were fun, and this one was all about her, which meant that it was her favorite food on the table and her choice of conversation. She already knew she'd be bored at Sayuri' and Kaede's party, given that she had no doubt it would all be about Shinobi things she wasn't yet allowed to know, so she might as well live it up now.

The party was interesting for one other reason, too. It was the first time she truly understood the connections between the Akimichi, Yamanaka, and Nara. For one, the adults—two Akimichi couples and two Yamanaka couples—each had one spouse on one of Sakura's parents' genin teams. For another, each of her siblings seemed to follow this pattern—Ren's girlfriend was another Yamanaka, Ikue, but his teammates were a Nara girl and Akimichi boy respectively. Sayuri's, on the other hand, contained an Akimichi but a civilian took the place of the Nara, and while Aoi didn't have a team to bring (and did not, in fact, come at all) Kaede's new one was outfitted with the stereotypical Akimichi and Nara teammates.

Sakura could even see the pattern being maintained for those not yet graduated—Akina was hanging out with two boys, a Nara and an Akimichi, while Arato was hanging around the Nara's brother and an Akimichi girl. Ayame, too, held strong to the pattern, as did Fujio—all of them, intentionally or unintentionally, maintaining the Ino-Shika-Cho combination.

This made what her parents did when it came time to eat more than a little telling.

Just as she was beginning to feel hungry, Sakura was lifted up, swung around until she couldn't stop laughing, then plopped between a three year old Nara (Shin) and a four year old Akimichi (Juro.)

"Get to know each other." Her mother smiled. "And be polite!"

The Nara did not say a single word. The Akimichi couldn't, with how much he was stuffing his face.

Sakura didn't really think she needed more friends—she already had Kohana.

She wondered why they were all different ages.

She pushed the thought out of her head, recognizing her brain's realization that it was something her consciousness did not want to know.

She ate cake.

In the months following her birthday she fell quickly into a routine. While her parents were weary to push her as far as they had the last time, the longer she went without incident the more they tried to see if she could handle it. By the start of a new academy year that summer she was up every day at seven and followed a rigorous schedule until dinner: a half hour of (very basic) chakra-less chakra lessons, followed by equally basic survival lessons, followed by practice memorizing weaponry and throwing balls, followed by exercise, followed by kata training, followed by simple math, followed by her lessons on plants, followed by family history, followed by etiquette. Somewhere in there her lunch, playtime, cleaning time, and afternoon nap would be slipped in, and before she knew it it was time for the bustle of dinner.

It hurt, sometimes, her lessons. They weren't bad, really—actually, she found the information riveting, even if it had taken much too long to understand how a taller, skinnier glass filled with water held as much as a shorter, wider one. The problem was more the loneliness of the schedule.

She only saw Kohana for an hour of playtime, now—her only hour, and the third of Kohana's that day. The rest of the day, however, she had no company but mama, who had to split her time between Sakura, Kohana (Tou-san having left), Himari, and daily chores, making her less than ideal company.

Sakura started to kind of understand where Fujio was going with this whole jealousy thing.

That didn't mean it was all bad, though! Now that she was able to clean her own teeth and only needed a bath every other day, she got to have reading time with Ayame after dinner while mother finished helping Kohana and Himari. While the six year old's reading wasn't… ideal, it was still reading, and Ayame also had a habit of dragging her finger along the words she was reading, which made it easier to follow and try to make out the symbols.

In this way the summer and fall passed uneventfully, with, perhaps, the exception of Shin and Juro being pushed on her for an hour at least once every other week. They still hadn't spoken much beyond social niceties, but it was good to have an extended nap, so Sakura wouldn't complain too much.

January, however, brought a party.

More specifically, the fifteenth of January bought the sixth month of the Nara heir's life. He, as well as the Akimichi heir (born shortly after Sakura's own birthday) and the Yamanaka heir (born January 24th, which she really didn't recall), would be _the_ next Ino-Shika-Cho trio, and in celebration (as well as an early birthday party for the oldest), all three clans held a large gathering at the Yamanaka's main house.

Sakura's family was invited.

It would be her first time in the main house, and it was also Akina', Arato', Ayame', Fujio', Kohana', and Himari's first time too.

Kaa-san may have been panicking.

"It'll be alright!" Chichi (who had reappeared only a week ago) laughed, half exasperated and half amused as he helped Kamui fix his outfit.

"It will not be alright! We are expected there in fifteen minutes— _fifteen minutes_ —and we still need to switch Akina and Arato out of each other's clothes and get Kohana to stop picking at her ponytail!"

"I don't want to wear my kimono!" Akina griped. "It's too girly! Arato likes girly stuff anyway, I don't see what the big deal is!"

"And, as I've told you before, Akina, I don't care what you wear day to day, but at formal events you _will_ dress properly, and that's final! Kenta, help them switch." Chichi (Kenta?) sighed and dusted Kamui's shoulders one last time, before turning to a pouting Arato. Sakura had a feeling that Kamui's outfit had been fine for at least the last three or so minutes, but that her father had simply not wanted to get involved into the argument until he absolutely had to.

In other news, Kohana's ponytail was now completely disassembled. Sakura was jealous.

"Kohana! What did you do to your hair?!" Kaa-san cried.

"I'll fix it, Kaa-san." Sayuri said. She was going to be attending as part of the family for the ceremony, but Ren wouldn't be, instead choosing to escort his girlfriend Ikue and her elderly grandmother on his own.

"Thank you, Sayuri." Mama sighed. "Alright, is everyone ready?" Sakura looked around. Out of those attending (which unfortunately did not include Aoi—how long had it been since she'd seen him?) Sayuri was, of course, perfectly made up, and while Kaede's was a bit off Kamui's obi had been knotted to perfection. Akina and Arato were in the right kimonos, and Ayame and Fujio had each fallen asleep on each other against the wall. Sakura knew that she herself was prepared (having been made up last) and the baby didn't really need to be all that dressed up, being only one, so that left Kohana.

"It hurts!"

"You'll get used to it."

And that was everybody.

"Remember proper etiquette!" Kaa-san cried, and they were out the door.

As they walked up the hill Chichi began to describe the main Yamanaka house. It was at least three times the size of any of its neighbors, and held not only the current head of the family's family but also any who could not live on their own, be they elderly, orphaned, or ill. The eastern part of the main house also held a number of offices for Yamanaka matters, but, her father explained, they generally went unused, being positioned as they were directly next to the (very noisy) Yamanaka training grounds.

"Now," Kaa-san interrupted, "I need all of you to remember to be on your best behavior, and to congratulate Inoto-san for his healthy baby boy—whose name is Inoichi. I mentioned that, right? I'm fairly sure I mentioned that. Anyway, the Akimichi air is Choza and the Nara heir is Shikaku. That shouldn't be too hard to remember—after all, they were named after Ino-Shika-Cho, so just _try_ to remember to congratulate—oh, we're here." 

They entered, and began the long standing tradition of too-many-social-niceties-for-any-reasonable-person-to-endure.

Sakura, perhaps spitefully, intentionally did not congratulate Inoto on his soon-to-be one year old son. The clan head did not seem to mind, but then he seemed to be more on auto-pilot than actually listening to anything that was said.

Sakura wondered if there'd be any sweets.

"C'mon!" Kohana said, appearing from out of nowhere. "I want to meet your teammates!"

"Teammates?" Sakura asked.

"You know!" Kohana whined. "Shin and Juro!"

So, it seemed her policy of ignorance hadn't worked. How unfortunate.

Eventually she and Kohana had weaved through the crowd far enough to reach Juro, whose (extremely) tall father had been easy to pick out of a crowd, even with the two's less than optimal perspective.

"Hi!" Kohana started, completely disregarding all the etiquette her mother had so thoughtfully made her memorize once a day seven days a week. "My name's Kohana! Yours is Juro. Did you know that the Camelia flower is not only used in teas, but also in cosmetics?"

"Um, no." Juro said.

"Go, play." His mother said. She seemed distracted. "I need to find your brother Hachiro."

"Hachiro?" Sakura asked, against her permission.

"Dad's not very creative with names." Juro explained. "Kazuro, Jiro, Zoro, Shiro, Goro… first son, second, third, fourth, fifth… I'm the tenth, and the youngest."

Kohana curled her lip. "Didn't your mom come up with any baby names?" She asked.

"She and Dad made a deal that she'd name the girls and he'd name the boys. The problem is they only had sons, so she never got to name anybody. And anyway, Dad swears up and down that we have good names."

"I guess they're not… awful." Sakura said, trying to be polite.

"We're all named after flowers." Kohana said. "That's much better than just birth order!" Juro shrugged. "Anyway, do you know where Shin is? I want to meet all of Sakura-chan's future teammates! I haven't seen any of you since her birthday." Without missing a beat Juro shrugged again. "Dunno. We've just arrived ourselves. That's why mom's so worried about my eighth oldest brother, Hachiro. He shouldn't have disappeared so quickly."

Why didn't he seem surprised about Kohana thinking they were a future team? They were all different ages! Who knew if they'd even get along as ninja? And it wasn't like Kohana had any obvious future team, so why did Sakura have to have one?

"C'mon!" Kohana whined. Sakura realized her sister was trying to pull her forward. "This place is really big and we need to start looking immediately!"

While they never did end up finding Shin, Kohana's incessant effort to find "my best sister's future teammates!" seemed to endear everyone they met. More worryingly, not one seemed surprised at the proclamation.

Eventually, though, Kohana began to exhaust herself, and went to find mama while Sakura turned back to her original goal: food.

Just as she'd spotted a table of finger snacks, and noticed that the only ones in her reach were annoyingly healthy, a conversation to her left caught her attention. More specifically, the voice of Sakura's oldest sister made the topic more interesting than carrots, but then that was a pretty low bar.

"She won't even talk to me!" Sayuri whined to the girl next to her. "I mean, yes, I probably shouldn't have made out with her brother, but he was _so cute!_ But now Yua's threatening to kick me out and we've been best friends since our first year at the academy!"

"I mean," the Yamanaka next to her responded, "she did catch you with his tongue down your throat and your hand down his—" 

"Hush! You never know who's listening" Sayuri said, slapping her hand over the other girl's mouth and whipping around to see if anyone had, indeed, caught their conversation.

Sakura blinked at her.

Sayuri did not look thrilled at the attention.

"You—you didn't hear that, did you?"

"What did you have your hand down?" Sayuri asked. She wondered if she put it down the hole at the bottom of the toilet. Kohana did that last week (to see where it led) and mama was really upset.

"Nothing! I didn't put my hand down anything!" Sakura opened her mouth to point out that the other Yamanaka had, in fact, sounded fairly certain about the events, but Sayuri groaned before she could get a word out. "How about this: I give you three pieces of dango, and you tell no one anything about what you heard."

Sakura thought about it. She didn't understand what the big deal was, but it was obvious Sayuri _really_ cared about her answer. "Five pieces." 

"Four."

"Five, or no deal."

"Fine!" Sayuri groaned. She stomped over to the appetizer table and grabbed the requisite pieces off of one of the higher tiered plates.

"Nice." The other Yamanaka girl nodded at Sakura. "But next time remember you could go for higher. I'm pretty sure you could have gone up to eight before Sayuri would have even tried to argue back." Sakura nodded in return, filing that information, as well as the side-eye Sayuri gave her companion for giving it, in her mind for later evaluation.

"Well, you didn't agree at eight, you agreed at five. And you better honor your promise!" Sayuri snapped.

Sakura hummed happily around a mouth full of dango. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She mumbled. "This dango fell out of thin air."

"Good, good." Sayuri said. "Now, shoo!"

Sakura shooed.

About five minutes later she came upon the very trio the party was about. They had been sat in the middle of a room, and a photographer had been hired to take a picture of them, so their parents were trying very hard to get them to sit still and have their eyes open long enough for a good photograph to be taken.

It wasn't going well.

Behind the adults Sakura began making faces (a surefire way to get her little sister to laugh), and while Shikaku couldn't care less and Choza still looked like he was about to cry, Inoichi began crawling towards her. The adults thought he was trying to crawl to his mother, and Sakura disappeared before they noticed her. The heirs were even more boring than Himari!

Shortly after running from one end of the estate to the other, twice, however, she began to experience the dreaded sugar crash.

She decided to look for a blanket, and a place to nap. She'd barely found the first, however, when large hands wrapped around her, picking her up and putting her against their hip.

"Hi Chichi!"

"Hello my favorite blossom!" Tou-san replied, He said that to all of his kids, but it still made Sakura happy whenever he said it to her. "Shouldn't you be with Juro and Shin?"

"Why?" Sakura asked. No one had told her that she was supposed to be with them.

"Well, they're your friends, aren't they?" Chichi asked.

Sakura didn't know about that. They'd never played together, after all, only slept. But she guessed this particular friendship wasn't up to her, so she nodded in agreement when Tou-san offered to carry her there.

"Are you looking forward to the academy?" He asked.

Sakura made a noise. "That's forever away." She mumbled.

Chichi laughed. "It's this summer!"

Sakura blinked at him. It was? "I'm not in the pre-academy group."

"Well, no… you're not." Here Chichi looked kind of uncomfortable. "Your mother was just going to teach you until then. After what happened last winter…"

It had been a year already? Huh.

"Anyway! You are catching up to where they were supposed to be about a month ago, and you're moving at a much faster pace than them, so you'll be plenty prepared by the next semester."

Sakura squirmed. "And Shin and Juro are entering with me?"

"Yep!" Tou-san said. "Won't it be nice to have your friends by your side?"

Sakura made a noise that sounded like agreement, and didn't protest when her father settled her next to a sleeping Shin and a playing Juro. "Have fun!"

Sakura turned and blinked at Juro, who was holding a stuffed bear. "What's its name?"

"Bear?" Juro asked. It seemed as if he'd never questioned that it could be anything else.

"Boring!" Sakura said. "I'm going to name it Toad."

"It's a bear." Juro said.

"Whose name is Toad!" Sakura grinned. New goal for the party: get Juro to call his bear Toad.

"It. Is. A. Bear." Juro said.

"Yes it is!" Sakura replied. "And his name is Toad!"


	4. Academy: Year 1

Sakura's first birthday had been a minor affair, overshadowed by those of her siblings that had happened in the weeks previous and afterwards. Her second had been much grander, a sort of particularly spectacular celebration because it was apparently the first they thought she'd remember. Her third landed somewhere in between, with sweets and games but not as many siblings able to make it, not as much attention solely focused on her.

What made her third birthday all the more memorable, however, was that the day after was the first time she was sent to study with the six other Yamanaka who were preparing for the next summer or winter entry to the academy.

In terms of physical capabilities, Sakura couldn't hope to compete. She was far better than most other three year-olds, but she did not have the same coordination or speed as the four, five, and six year-olds she shared her lessons with.

In terms of everything else, however?

Most of the others had to physically force their attention span to last longer than 30 minutes. She regularly made it to an hour before she found her mind wandering. Most of the others could recite fifteen, maybe twenty plants and some of their qualities. She'd made it to 32. This pattern continued over nearly every lesson they were drilled in—it was she who understood chakra best (although admittedly far from perfectly), she who at least _knew_ everything she was supposed to do to survive with only a basic shinobi kit in the woods, she who recognized the most weapons when they were placed in front of the group, she who (usually) managed to keep the historical events they'd begun to be coached in in the correct order.

But she could still barely through a kunai, much less a shuriken. She still gave up first when they ran any physical drills, who had to be corrected most when they went over kata. Her hands refused to cooperate when she tried to make hand signs.

So her her pre-academy peers seemed very confused over whether or not to be jealous of her. This debate was quickly settled, however, when the one year-old Inoichi began to be placed in their lessons for a few hours a day, "just to observe." The class's general consensus seemed to be that at least she was potty-trained, so she couldn't be that bad.

In June, however, with her start date only a month away, Sakura decided to do something she'd solemnly sworn not to.

At night, when everybody from Kaa-san to the two year old Himari was asleep, when the fans positioned strategically around the house did little to keep her hair from clumping against her face, she closed her eyes and, once more, opened the floodgates to Arden's memories.

They whizzed by her the same as they had last time, crowding into her consciousness and leaving barely any room to breathe, to think, to act. But the horror she'd gone through with the evil doctor apparently had a purpose after all, because the sheer volume did not cause her to break as it had last time.

Instead she forced herself to ignore the great majority of it and instead grab one wisp of a memory, and then another. Arden had left her a trove of information and there was no way in hell she was going to the academy without having accessed even part of it.

She grabbed the smallest string of memories she came across, a series of apparently connected bits of information that Arden apparently injected in sequence, bits that Sakura quickly realized contained Arden's actual life, and the first thing she learned was that by the time Arden was shoving information into her, most of it was long gone, already faded away as Arden eventually would be. There were still flashes, sure—a swing that she'd apparently spent much of her childhood on; an eerie memory involving something called a TV and towers falling, falling and lots of crying; a happy memory, involving somebody (Arden's sister?) throwing a bouquet and another girl screaming with joy as she caught it; the stress of a test superimposed onto the image of a 'gymnasium' filled with row after row of tables and chairs…

Arden couldn't have been older than twenty when she died, but what memories remained showed a full life, one consisting of the same constant feeling of contentment that Sakura now found herself having in this life.

Her memory of anatomy, however, was another story.

There was more of it, for one, though Sakura knew this was also only a fraction of what Arden had learned in her own life. For another, it seemed like the explicit memories passed less… easily into her memories of this world. After all, it was all too simple to ignore that none of her memories had any mention of chakra in them—it was far more difficult to dive into Arden's memories of learning about the human body and realize that chakra simply seemed to not exist. Even at three Sakura had been instructed of the benefits of the life force beyond simply being alive—being able to use chakra, as humans could, allowed them to push their muscles farther, to make their brains work harder, to control nature in whichever way they dreamed, given enough knowledge and time.

Arden's world didn't seem to have that.

It was only as she'd finally reached Arden's information about skin, however, that she realized the sun was beginning to rise. In that time she'd managed to go through about 1/1000th of what Arden left, and that was being optimistic. But she hadn't slept in about twenty four hours now, and Himari was crying because she'd apparently wet the bed, and Mama was rushing into the room to deal with that, only to notice Sakura and her clear exhaustion, and before Kaa-san had the time to freak out Sakura stuttered out a lie about a really weird dream involving a monkey making tomato soup and her mother was checking her for a fever and telling her to stay in bed.

Sakura did not touch the memories again until two days later, and then restricted herself to about an hour a night.

By the time the next academy group started she'd finished most of Arden's memories on human anatomy, and come to the conclusion that at least half of it had to be irrelevant. She should've started with the memories she knew Arden had of her world, but she hadn't been able to find them at first, lost as they were in the sea of information. Still, she was fairly sure anything would be better than an in-depth understanding of the human-like life form that Arden had been, a life-form which did not exist (at least in carbon-copy) here.

On the other hand, her ability to remember and comprehend seemed to soar with each memory she did take in, regardless of its material, so she had managed to get the highest grades in her pre-academy class in everything remotely educational. Inoichi, now one-and-a-half, could count to two. He was applauded first.

The academy, or at least the one Sakura was going to attend and the only one within Konoha proper, was positioned inside of the shinobi headquarters on one side of the building, which itself was positioned at the very edge of the city. The walk to get there wasn't really all that difficult—she and her mother (her father, unfortunately, having disappeared again shortly before her birthday), as well as the rest of the academy students, new and old, had simply turned left from the Yamanaka main gates, then right at the main road. It had been a bit of a long trip, admittedly—most of the older children raced ahead at one point or another, tired of being held back by the speed of the 'sprouts'.

It would be pertinent to note at this point that this was not Sakura's first time out and about in Konoha. She had, after all, had regular playdates with Shin Nara and Yuri Akimichi. The thing was, they always turned right out of the compound to get to them, crisscrossing major roads, sure, but not the road to the main gate by any means, which meant that this was her first look at the street often called the 'spine' of Konoha.

It was… busy, she supposed. It was early, too—the Academy technically started at seven, but the Yamanaka always started their journey on the first day at six. That meant that most of the traffic on the road now was either merchants and the like preparing their restaurants for the day, or other students making their way to the same place they were, and it seemed like most of the latter were still asleep.

Still, the sheer number of carts, horses, products, and people was much, much more than she was expecting. The only reason she knew it was technically reasonably empty was because the road could clearly support four or five times the amount, and because despite being lined with commercial stores, no one seemed to be shopping and most shops seemed to be closed.

Which made its business all the more notable, really.

Besides that, though, the most impressive part of the road was the part they were headed straight towards—three faces carved out of stone, etched in pain staking detail, perfectly positioned so that at least one could be seen no matter where on the main road you stood.

"The Hokages!" Sakura said. A cousin agreed, and began talking about why this was such a clear sign of the first Hokage's brilliance, when another cousin started to talk over the first, explaining why the third Hokage was obviously the best, despite, of course, having never met the man. Then another cousin interrupted, pointing out how his father was _so_ amazing that he should be the Hokage.

The adults smiled, though, happy to see the harmless debate wiping away the nerves all of the children had been pretending didn't exist.

Sakura was more preoccupied with how some part of her had recognized all the faces, despite having only met one of the men and never having seen a picture of any of the others.

She really needed to get through Arden's memories.

But now, when they'd finally arrived at the academy that was only now filling up with its first arrivals, was not the time.

Almost unwittingly Sakura found herself being pushed away from her mother, away from her clan. One of her fellow Yamanaka year mates, a stalky five year old named Gaku, took the lead, ushering the rest of them into a swarm of similarly sized peers, somehow managing to place them smack dab next to the Nara clan children, with the Akimichi right in front of them. As the crowd continued to grow, Sakura found herself being moved once more. It wasn't… it wasn't intentional, exactly. Or perhaps it was, just not… specific to the individual? It was just that, whenever she recognized one of her pre-academy peers' partners, she'd help shove them closer based on where she knew they were, and whenever someone saw one of hers, they'd do the same.

The whole Ino-Shika-Cho thing had really been pushed on them pretty hard.

Still, Sakura did find it strangely comforting to know that the ever quiet Shin and increasingly talkative Juro would be by her side, and it was nice to have them literally so when the crowd became so large that she started to be forced forward no matter what she did. Each boy grabbed one of her hands (as she was, by far, the smallest, and therefore the one least able to stop the force of the mob from pushing her to and fro) and physically held her in place. Juro even, after a few minutes of the treatment, began to sneakily look for feet to step on (who cares if it happened to be his brother Kuro, so long as everyone stopped shoving?) and Shin began to subtly maneuver them closer to the middle of the Ino-Shika-Cho group, were there seemed to be less movement overall.

Finally a gong rang. In the time since their arrival, the small courtyard next to the school that every first year student had flocked to had gone from having seventy or so inhabitants to easily over 200.

Arato had told her once that most years started out around there; "256 in my class," he'd explained, "but most leave over time, because a lot of civilians just want to take advantage of the free education. That said, generally by ten there's less than fifty. See, you take the group you start out with, and about half leave before the year's out, most during the first semester, which leaves 128. Then, the next full year—year two—generally sees about two dozen quit, which leaves, let's say 100. The next year, year three, you don't see too many people leaving, maybe ten or so, but year four's where they really pump up the pressure, so that's generally were you drop down to about fifty. Then you don't get many people dropping out during years five or six, but that's because at the end of it you have the graduation exam, so most people are willing to stick it out until then, even if they don't really think they'll pass to become full genin."

Sakura looked around. From her vantage point, with her height, she couldn't see much of anyone besides Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi, but she knew that the group of them together made up about twelve students in her year and semester. She wondered which of her cousins wouldn't want to stay, and whether their partners would leave with them.

Not that she was supposed to be thinking like that, of course. Based on the words of the Hokage who was currently waxing poetic to the class, she was supposed to be thinking about how to support her fellow ninja, so they could all grow, flourish, and defend Konoha together.

She thought of her fourth oldest brother, Kamui, who had dropped out when he was nine. He'd have defended Konoha if he had to, she knew, but she also knew that he would've wished to be anywhere else when he was doing it: pain, both giving and receiving, had never appealed to him. Were there any others like those in her class, she'd make no effort to stop them from being happy, no matter how pretty the Hokage's words. But the man's words were still powerful, and she also before she knew it Sakura had also determined to do as her mother had, and try to convince them to try for just a bit longer just in case they might change their minds in the interim.

He was talking about the will of fire now, and how trees, despite being generally considered incredibly flammable, would persevere during a forest fire, and come out stronger on the whole for it once it was over. His words seemed to pump energy into her veins, and she could suddenly picture herself fighting at Shin' and Juro's side, defending the people she loved and refusing to give up, even when all hope was lost, and winning because of it.

"The will of fire is in all of your veins," the Hokage finished, "and it is here that you will learn to harness it."

After a speech such as that it was almost criminal to simply start listing names for various classes in a droning monotone, completely killing the spirit it had achieved.

There were to be five new classes, it was explained. Each time two classes dropped to less than 25, they would be merged. Interestingly, and without any official announcement proclaiming it, not one of the pre-made Ino-Shika-Cho teams was split. Shin, Juro, and Sakura were all placed in classroom three under Sensei Masaru with little fanfare, and slowly, inch by inch, person by person, the crowd in the courtyard was formed into five vaguely militaristic series of rows—five across, ten down, which worked fairly well, given that each group had between 47 and 48 students.

And then, with even less fanfare, each group was led to one of the top floor classrooms.

The academy was six floors high.

Sakura would be expected to take five flights of stairs at least four times a day, every day—up in the morning, out and in for physical lessons, and then down in the evening.

Every day.

Sakura understood a bit better, now, why so many quit in their first year.

Five of her classmates outright refused to move at various points, and were abandoned where they sat.

By the fifth staircase, each and every one achingly tall because apparently each level had to be at least fifteen feet apart, Sakura was almost crawling.

Sensei Masaru did not seem to care.

Even when they finally arrived at the top, the apex, the goal—he did not allow them to stop to rest. Instead, they were promptly led into the first classroom on the left, where Sensei Masaru pointed to each desk one by one and announced who would be sitting where.

Sakura was placed in the second row, smack dab between Shin and Juro, and behind two Hyuuga and an Uchiha.

The entirety of the first row and about half of the second, Sakura realized, were clan kids, with the rest of the class from the end of row two to four filled with average looking children and orphans. The fifth, on the other hand, held those who were clearly richer or poorer than the rest of the class.

She wondered if their placements had anything to do with how likely they would be to drop out. She thought they probably did—a number of the richer students in the back row were the most vocally displeased about the stairs, and wore clothing clearly unsuited for any kind of exercise, and Sakura knew the academy wasn't free.

The first and second row inhabitants that she recognized were more interesting. There were three Hyuuga total, for instance, in this class—the twins who sat in front of her, as well as another who was to the very right in the second row. There were also two Uchiha, though she didn't think they were siblings; both sat in the front row. Making up the rest of the front row was a Shimura, two Sarutobi, and the other Ino-Shika-Cho trio that had made it into the class—she knew all of them to be nieces and nephew of the current leaders.

The rest of her row was taken up by a pair of Inuzuka twins and some of the more athletic looking remaining students.

"As," Sensei Masaru began, and everyone's eyes snapped to the front as if against their will, "I'm sure you have noticed, you have all been organized in a very specific way. Simply put, the closer you are to the front, the more I expect you to stick around. I could be wrong, of course, and I welcome that chance as any would—I did, after all, prove my own Sensei wrong, and I encourage all of you in the back to do the same. That said, you will not be moved up until you have proved to me that you have some modicum of skill. That said, by the same token, you will not be moved back until you disappoint me."

As if on cue, one of the stragglers pushed the door open. She was clearly an orphan girl—they were all given the same Uzu symbol to wear, in honor of their sister village—but there was no more room where the other three were sitting. Two of the other stragglers, a girl and boy, had changed their mind about giving up and managed to make it up in time to get those seats. "Case in point—you, for your delay in changing your mind, will find that your seat is in the back row. Please find it before I decide that the seat isn't even in this building." She rushed forward and grabbed one, leaving only five seats bare. Sensei Masaru glanced at the clock, then nodded firmly. He turned towards the window and opened it, ignoring the room full of stares, before making his way to the back of the room and picking up each and every empty seat.

He then made his way to the front and, quite unceremoniously, chucked all five of them out the window.

The class flinched when they clattered onto the ground. A few seconds later another clatter was heard, ostensibly from the same thing happening in the room next door.

Just then the classroom door opened again, revealing a red-faced boy who looked torn between flying into a rage and fainting in an effort to catch his breath.

"You never answered my question about why we're on the top floor!" He snapped. "That's very rude, you know. You could have at least carried me—you saw that I was having trouble!"

Sensei Masaru moved to the chalkboard in the front of the room and began to write out the day's schedule.

"Hello? Can you hear me? Are you deaf?" Sakura stared at the boy in a sort of wide eyed fascination. She'd never heard any child talk to an adult like that. She wondered who the boy was, that he seemed to believe he was the one deserving of respect. Oh, it seemed the boy had just realized the class had no empty chairs.

"Where am I supposed to sit?" He whined. "I made it all the way up here, and I can't even sit down?!"

The Uchiha in front of Juro smirked, and muttered "You could always sit on the floor."

"The—the—! You expect me to sit on the floor!"

Sensei Masaru was still ignoring the boy, and had moved on to listing out the physical and mental requirements they were supposed to achieve by the end of the semester.

"You!" The boy said. He was pointing at one of the orphans—the one who was closest to the right of the third row's table, where the path to file in and out was. "Stand up!"

The orphan (Yasuo?) looked at the straggler, then at Sensei Masaru, then back at the straggler. He shook his head.

"Do you hear me?" The straggler said. "My name is Takashi Saito! My uncle owns the most popular bank in Konoha! You are merely an orphan, with no family at all! When I tell you to do something, you do it!"

Yasuo glanced at Sensei Masaru again, who had yet to turn from the chalkboard and was now sketching out diagrams for their first lesson of the day (grammar), and then shook his head again.

Takashi had apparently had enough, and stormed towards Yasuo, lifting his hand as he did. Yasuo flinched, but before the slap could connect Sensei was _there_ , holding Takashi's hand in a visibly painful vice grip and making no effort to move.

"Yasuo."

"Yes, Sensei?"

"Please switch seats with Teru Inuzuka."

"What did I do?!" Teru snapped, but his sister Kegawa shushed him.

"You were in the best position to stop this, and did nothing. Switch seats, now."

It was true—Teru sat directly in front of Yasuo, and by the time Takashi had begun rushing forwards he had already been standing next to the Inuzuka, making it technically more difficult for the Sarutobi sitting at the end of the front row to have done something. Still, Sakura wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to have done.

Nevertheless both boys carefully switched seats, slowly making their way around a statuesque Sensei Masaru and the suddenly mute and clearly terrified Takashi in his grip.

"As for you… Saito… please go home, now, and explain to your mother, and your father, and your uncle, and every other family member you see fit to brag about, that you got kicked out of the academy. And please, I insist, tell them to come to me if they have _any_ questions as to why." Sensei released his grip, Takashi released his bladder, and the two stepped apart far enough for the latter to slip out of the classroom almost faster than Sakura had time to blink.

Neither of the other stragglers entered for the rest of the day, and Sakura wondered if they'd been thinking about it until they saw Takashi on his way out.

Whatever they were thinking, those in the class knew the truth—no one would _ever_ disobey Sensei Masaru, so long as they had the slightest bit of reasoning left in their bodies.

None of this, however, made up for Sakura's next realization: the academy was boring.

Very boring.

Very, very boring.

She wondered if Arden had ever had to repeat a grade, like some in the academy did after their sixth year, and if she had any tips on how to deal with the mind numbing boredom of having already gone over all the information previously.

She was fairly sure that Shin's solution of staring blankly ahead and zoning out so completely that he never answered a single question wasn't ideal, but then Juro's plan of releasing an ant every day and trying to keep track of it until they left didn't seem that great either, and based on how some of her classmates were struggling, no pre-academy training was also a very bad idea, and too late to implement anyway.

So instead she was stuck, bored out of her mind, while Sensei operated as if none of them knew anything more than addition and basic reading, but somehow also had the learning speed of a Nara.

By the end of the first week half of the third row had dropped back a row, and half of the fourth row had moved forward. No one in the first or second rows moved at all, including Yasuo, who somehow managed to eke past each test by increasingly narrow margins as he desperately tried to show he was worthy of his spot. The rest of the non-clan members in the second row, on the other hand, looked to be relying on their brawn rather than their brain to maintain their positions, and so far it was working.

As for Sakura, Shin, and Juro, they had yet to score anything but perfect marks, and still had private training at home to keep up with at the same time. (This, of course, was par for the course for clan children, but still.)

The other big thing about the academy was the people. Sakura had always liked people. She enjoyed spending time with her siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins—basically, anyone available. She just wasn't the best at initiating contact anymore, particularly with people she had little to nothing in common with (this, as well as Shin' and Juro's own behavior, may have resulted in her Ino-Shika-Cho team had picked up the collective name 'chinmoku', or silence, within the first week of the academy.)

While there was a reason for her sudden reticence, its benefit was that it did provide her with the time and circumstances necessary to observe her peers, and try to understand as much as she could without direct questions.

The Hyuuga, for instance, were not fond of talking. The twins—Hizashi and Hiashi, Sakura learned, were main house Hyuuga, both of them five years old and hyper competitive, but only to each other—they did not see any other as worth their time. The third, Hiroki, was a branch Hyuuga, and only ever spoke to the twins, and only then to do whatever they wanted him to. Sakura… tried not to think about that particular relationship too much.

The Uchiha, too, she also had trouble getting to know. They were generally quite insular, and while they'd occasionally talk with the other children of the clans (including team chinmoku), they'd never talk to anyone else, and mostly just make conversation with each other whenever conversation had to be had at all.

The Inuzuka, at least, were cheerful. While they were separated, Teru and Kegawa didn't let that stop them from talking regularly, even taking an inevitable punishment or two whenever they allowed their cross-row powwow to go on too long. They'd also talk to whomever was next to them, or seemed interesting, or happened to be in the same building. In short, while the Hyuuga and Uchiha talked too little, the Inuzuka talked too much.

Even they didn't talk to Sakura that frequently, though. They tried, at least, but found her odd for being so young and even odder for not seeming to be solely made of energy as they were. They got along a lot better with those who were already clearly Taijutsu focused; those who wanted to wrestle and fight during recess, rules be damned.

Out of the rest of the inhabitants of the first two rows, Sakura probably got along least with Ryota Shimura, and he more than anything was the cause for the scale of her shift in behavior. The Sarutobi children had much the same problem as the Inuzuka, really—too much energy, too much emotion, all of it filling one small body (two times over.) They were just as hard to dislike, however, because they, too, seemed to have an endless fountain of good humor to draw from, no matter what the situation. The other Ino-Shika-Cho trio Sakura probably got along with best, even if they acted nothing like her own (her cousin being much more of a gossip, the Nara being cursed with a superiority complex, and the Akimichi clearly not wanting to be there at all.)

Ryota Shimura, on the other hand, was nothing more than a bully.

There was a girl in class, one of the orphans named Sachiko Morino, who, while fairly smart, had an awful stutter which she found impossible to control. Every day, at least once a day, Shimura would make sure to point it out, to point out exactly how unsuitable for ninja work she must be, and once, when he was absolutely sure neither the Sensei nor any of his classmates (except for Sakura, but how could he know she'd lagged behind the rest of the class out of some inexplicable sense of unease), about how the only work she _was_ suited for involved her on her back.

Both Shimura and Morino were five.

And the worst, the most horrible part?

Shimura was popular.

It was, she supposed, part hero worship—the Shimura clan was a major clan even before the founding of Konoha, and their decision to move here was largely considered the reason the city ended up succeeding. It was also, she knew, his looks. He was tall, pretty, and athletic, even at his young age—what more could you want? His charisma, combined with his habit of taking others under his wing probably helped, too, and by the end of the first month he'd managed to get over half of the non-clan kids to start listening to his words as if they were gospel.

But he also said those things to Morino, and actively pushed anyone he saw as unworthy (too feminine, too weak, too unfocused, too childish…) to quit. He'd succeeded three times, already. Sensei Masaru did not seem to care.

Beyond the clan children, as well as the third row Inuzuka, second row Yasuo, and Sachiko Morino, there were two other orphans, fourteen children from shinobi households, two children from poorer families, and seven wealthier children remaining.

If the same held true for the rest of the classes, then the school had already lost about 30 students. Sakura knew that about another 100 would leave before July came about again.

She wondered if she could change that number, make it smaller, less devastating. After all, Kamui had left of his own free will, to pursue desires that a shinobi career simply couldn't. But the children who had already left to never return? Two of them had never made it to the classroom, and she couldn't see them persevering anyway, and another—Takashi—had made such a bad impression that Sakura would be amazed if he were allowed to reenter the following year, an option generally left open to all first year drop-outs. But the other three… The first had left in the first week, after he'd cried over not knowing an answer in class and an hour later Shimura pinned him to a wall during recess and muttered something too softly for anyone to hear. The second had left nearly two weeks later, when Shimura had grown tired of her constant last place position in races, and set his newly acquired gang on her—she hadn't even made it through the day. The third had left just three days before the end of the month, when he had a panic attack shortly after lunch and sprinted out the door the second Shimura opened his mouth.

The last had been part of Shimura's gang, actually, before that had happened.

At the same time, though, it was all too clear that this was what the academy wanted to happen. She found it hard to believe that anything escaped Sensei Masaru's notice, and yet he had not intervened once on the goings on in class. So long as you didn't interrupt his lessons, in fact, he wouldn't impose discipline at all. There were rules, sure—no wrestling during recess, no stealing, no bullying…

The problem was that the rules weren't enforced, that while the punishments for talking during a lecture were clearly outlined, the punishments for making a classmate cry weren't even worth a mention.

Assuming they existed, of course.

Her life was not entirely based in the academy, though. After school she would ignore whatever had happened that day and instead run, and play, and read to her little sister Himari. But the largest change came thanks to the hour she spent every night lost in her own head.

She still, even as winter approached, had yet to find the memories she knew existed of her own world. She'd searched for them, sometimes for the entire hour, but they were impossible to find amid the sludge of other information. To deal with that, then, she'd started taking some of it in.

It just hadn't turned out to be as easy as she'd hoped. The math information, for instance, gave her such a migraine so quickly that she found herself forced to stop for the night. Similarly, she found that in terms of anything that had to do with chemistry took her anywhere from five to ten tries to truly understand—and only when that happened would it stop clogging her brain once she unleashed the floodgates.

She had managed to get through many of the stories though, as well as basically all of Arden's understanding of English in both its spoken and written forms, but that was mostly because the latter was so interwoven with the rest of Arden's memories that every time she examined one it helped her understand the English memories a bit better too.

Shortly after Akina and Arato's birthday, however, she came upon memories which actually seemed useful in the immediate future: Arden's understanding of psychology.

There was a lot of it, to be sure, and not all of it was fully _there_ (a problem shared with most of Arden's other memories, too), but it did contain Arden's world's views on ethics (which were from the beginning quite clearly far removed from Sakura's own), as well as the psychological experiments that had been so useful but had, all the same, prompted rules to be put in place to keep them from happening again.

These experiments fascinated her.

People, she already knew, were quite malleable creatures. With the right words, the right actions, you could get nearly everyone to do nearly everything. The problem was that as much as she knew that to be the case, as much as she saw it in action every day at the academy, she herself had not put much effort into practicing it herself.

Her life had been easy and simple and she, like most of the rest of the Yamanaka clan, was likely expected to grow up to be a desk ninja (if a very good one) and live a life of relative ease within Konoha's borders. So playing mind games? It hadn't been the first thing on her mind.

It wasn't as if the Yamanaka weren't gifted at them—they were, she knew, considered some of the best members of the T&I department, and the older she got the more certain she became that that was where her mother worked every night, long after all her children had fallen asleep.

It's just…

Sakura had never really felt comfortable causing people pain. And as far as she could tell, it was not only the ability to manipulate, but also the ability to willingly and without remorse _hurt_ someone that made a good T&I shinobi. Front line shinobi, of course, hurt plenty of people too, but they did it in the moment, when their opponent was a direct threat to the lives of themselves and their comrades. Ninjas specializing in assassination also had an easier time of it—their target may not be an immediate threat, but they were still clearly a threat.

Those in T&I took enemies already neutralized and then hurt them all the more, to get out even the slightest drop of information that that enemy may have, regardless of whether or not another source had already given them what was necessary.

And Sakura didn't know if she was capable of that, so she'd never tried.

That said, the psychology in her mind thrilled her and seeing it in action in her classroom day to day made it all the more real, all the more powerful.

She saw children placed in positions of power doing things they normally would never dream of, not because they were told to do it but simply because of the addictive nature of the power coursing through their brains. She saw one boy in Shimura's gang begin to question whether it was really right to kick another boy in the stomach when he was already down, only to cave into peer pressure and agree that, really, he deserved it. She saw herself unable to defend these children, and pushing herself all the more in Taijutsu to make up for that perceived failure. She saw the constant reminders of the power of the Leaf and the danger of other villages to cause children to see anything not-them as a threat, as something to be exterminated.

The academy, really, was quite good at what it did—it took children and made them into soldiers. It took unmolded clay, and made someone who could think, but knew when not to; who could follow rules, but break them given the right motivation; who could murder, and come out the other end relatively unscathed.

Sakura knew all this, but she still drank in Arden's psychological knowledge every night. If there was any better, any less painful way to get the same results—then she'd try to make it happen, no matter how difficult the concept was.

(In the meantime, however, she continued to find herself cursed with an inability to get up the courage to act.)

The end of the semester brought a series of guest speakers to the class, one for each (official) Shinobi discipline.

The police force was discussed first, likely because the speaker ended up being so brief. Both civilians and shinobi worked there, and anyone could apply, but the force was overwhelmingly Uchiha. Should any of them chose to be in the police force, then they were expected to be competent in terms of ability to subdue without killing, find information, lead, and deal with a multitude of different assignments at once.

The tracking shinobi, who went next, was a bit more talkative. He was an Inuzuka, and explained that Shinobi who specialized in tracking generally had three kinds of missions: tracking down missing peoples (of both the ninja and civilian variety), tracking down missing objects (generally those whose worth was more than anyone who would touch it in its lifetime), and acting as scouts (figuring out who had gone where, if the borders were safe, how an unseen battle played out…)

Academy students wanting to be good at tracking would be, amazingly enough, expected to know how to track. They would also be expected to be fairly good at taijutsu and breaking genjutsu, and have a good amount of stamina.

Being an academy instructor, the next speaker's specialty, was an entirely different matter. An academy instructor, the speaker explained, was simply a stepping stone to better offices—academy instructors tended to become jonin instructors, yes, but the main pull for becoming one was better than average pay and the chance to work in the Hokage's office—not only that, but out of their three Hokage who had ruled two had spent some time as chunin teachers, however short. Nearly all the elders had taught at the academy in their youth too. Being an academy instructor was, apparently, where you went if your goals were political in nature.

A harried looking doctor followed the academy instructor, and went on for a bit too long about the need for more medical-nin, about the power they had to save lives. It seemed to be his first time speaking in front of such a large group, and it showed.

Next was T&I, which Sakura mostly tuned out—she'd heard the speech in its various forms played out too many times at her clan residence to need the refresher, and could probably have recited it in its entirety from memory before the speaker even began.

The research division, spoken for by an oddly buzzing Aburame, went next. This was a job that Sakura actually found herself interested in, and she listened more intently than she had to the others as the kunoichi talked about technology and its power to change the world. All too soon the speech was over, and a saboteur ninja had taken the floor.

And promptly left.

Apparently all they had to know was that they existed—the saboteurs would be keeping an eye out to see if there were any academy students they wanted, not the other way around.

She wondered if they were actually ANBU. It seemed likely.

The frontline speaker went next, a stocky Sarutobi who was actually the father of one of her classmates. Yamanaka were rarely frontline, so it wasn't particularly interesting to her, but her classmates on the whole seemed thrilled, outright leaning forward as he described massive battles involving ninjutsu and taijutsu and kinjutsu and so much chakra in the air that it was hard to breathe.

Apparently her peers missed the sentence where he mentioned that less than a third left that battle alive.

The day was wrapped up with a speaker from the cryptology department who, like the saboteur before him, barely spoke before leaving.

Aoi, she suddenly remembered, had talked about an interest in cryptology in passing before dropping out of the shinobi forces. She wondered what, exactly, the department did.

After the speeches were over each child was given a small card to outline their current top three choices on. They would be expected to do so once a semester every semester until graduation, to see where their interests lay and how they changed over time.

The chinmoku gathered together, and Sakura put pen to paper first.

 _Research_

Next was Shin, who thought for a second, then put down

 _Cryptology_

Juro went last, and took his time before finally writing down

 _Medical-nin_

Then all three copied the others' answers on their own cards, before turning them in. Ino-Shika-Cho did nothing separately until chunin, and that included choosing what they would do as a chunin (never mind that they rarely had the same desires: unity was more important than honesty.)

She did, however, wonder why they'd chosen what they had. It wasn't so much unexpected, as it was unexpectable. Perhaps they should do as the other Ino-Shika-Cho team had, and actually talk. Or perhaps, she thought as she noted the other team furiously arguing in the corner, apparently no closer to filling out their papers as they had been at the start, there were some benefits to silence after all.

.

Ren's marriage to Ikue, for a reason that was not well explained to Sakura, took place on a dreary Sunday in the middle of February. A good chunk of both the Yamanaka and Nara clans had attended to wish the two off on their journey, as well as a number of Ren's coworkers in T&I, who spent the majority of the time teasing Ren about marrying a girl who was over half a foot taller than him.

Despite the weather, it was a nice ceremony, and the two that took center stage clearly loved each other. Ikue, Sakura knew, had never made it past genin, but hadn't really wanted to and took her retirement from the forces in good grace, instead going into the much more mundane field of city planning.

That said, she had apparently taken her retirement too well—she'd only officially left the summer previous, and as Sakura found out during the ceremony the wedding took place in February less out of any particular love for the chilly month and more out of a desire to have the wedding done with before Ikue began to show.

Still, it was pleasant, and both families were having a relatively good time. Sakura, Shin, and Juro had found a bench near one of the corners to sit on after their exhaustion finally caused them to give up their individual battles to eat their body weights in sweets, and instead all three sat companionably at the edge of the hub-bub, watching their families interact as they themselves slipped by unnoticed.

It was the year 27 Konoha, and life was good.

This, of course, could not last.

It wasn't that a world war was on the horizon, thankfully—that particular aspect of life had ended in 16 Konoha, and hadn't been back since. The problem was more… personal than that.

Ren, now 18, and Ikue had settled down two blocks from Sakura's house by the end of spring, and she and the rest of the family were frequent visitors to ensure Ikue was doing well despite her pregnancy. Sixteen year-old Sayuri was now officially dating her (former) best friend Yua's older brother, but had left for a long term mission with a tracking team, one she did not have a return date from.

Aoi, halfway through his 14th year, was still missing, and everyone was still acting as if that did not matter.

Kamui had also moved out of the house, disappearing into a world of spices and specific meat cuts under the eyes of a watchful Akimichi chef.

Akina and Arato were due to become genin in the summer. They, like Aoi, had begun mentioning possibly quitting despite, like Aoi, having shown no inclination to do so in the past. Kaa-san didn't even blink.

Ayame was fresh-faced as ever, taking on the academy with as much aplomb as could be managed. Her goal, she had decided, was to be one of the first female frontline Yamanaka ever.

She still couldn't do a single jutsu.

Fujio was also doing well in the class two semesters above Sakura's own. He was, she understood, near the top of his class in everything but taijutsu, and so had begun nagging Akina and Arato to tutor him in what little free time they had.

Kohana, now five, was finally in the pre-academy class, but she'd already begun to make noises about preferring to do just about anything else. While she had enjoyed running and jumping and playing as a toddler, the more serious the lessons got the less she seemed to enjoy them, and she'd begun to make wistful eyes at their clan's flower shop rather than practice the required katas.

Sakura was still unravelling the ocean of stories that plagued her brain every night.

Himari, at almost-nearly-three, had found that she liked to climb onto the roof whenever anyone's back was turned.

And Kaede? 13 year-old Kaede who shared a birthday with Sayuri, who was Kamui's doppleganger in every physical aspect one could mention? Kaede who was sweet, and gentle, and kind, and always willing to lend a hand?

.

Ren's wedding had taken place on a chilly day when the clouds where so numerous and so overladen that they nearly drooped to the ground. Shortly before the wedding ended they'd released their burdens, pouring down a waterfall onto the party-goers who were rushing home.

Kaede's funeral took place on a day without a cloud in the sky, when the humidity was oddly absent and a slight breeze kept it from being too hot. It took place in May, with the flowers in full bloom, and birds chirping in every direction.

Kaede's funeral took place on the day after they'd found out he'd died, and that day had occurred only several hours after Sakura had uncovered Arden's first memory of the world she knew—a memory which showed an 'animation' of a crazy man, threatening to kill everyone in Konohagakure. Sakura had shoved back that memory, resolving to go to sleep and deal with it the next day, but the next day…

They weren't told how he died, and they weren't given a body to claim, and Sakura's throat was closed so tightly she worried she'd lost the ability to speak and eat permanently.

He was a genin, she knew, and every genin was put in potentially life threatening situations every day, but it was different when the genin was _your_ brother, when it was _his_ funeral you had to visit with tears burning your eyes and incense burning your nose and the image of a madman burning your brain.

Tou-san had appeared from nowhere to lead the funeral. He hadn't been there in nearly a year, having been who-knows-where doing who-knows-what for the Fire Nation, but he'd appeared quite unexpectedly on the day of the funeral and led the hand washing, the incense burning, and the tablet inscription.

No one spoke.

Kaa-san had put her into simple, undyed, hemp clothing the night before, and Sakura found everyone else in similar outfits when she awoke, so the scene outside the temple was a sea of beige cloth, blond hair, pale skin, and red eyes.

Sakura tried not to cry too loudly—she'd been instructed to be as silent as possible.

When the funeral rites were finally complete, and her brother's name had been inscribed on the tablet of those bound for the afterlife, each Yamanaka, Nara, Akimichi, and other attendee was given a single flower by the priest. Only when every member had been handed one did each, as one, begin to tear the flower apart—a reminder of the lasting impact of Kaede's death, and how more than one life was affected by it.

The thing was, Sakura had been so busy, so constantly forcing her mind to absorb more, more, more, that it seemed Ren's wedding had only been the day before. She could remember being pressed between Juro and Shin against one of the walls, watching the smiling faces around them as they tried desperately to stay awake until it was time to leave.

She remembered the beauty and the abundance of flowers, which had taken up every nook and cranny available, making the ceremony awash with every color in one's imagination, the clothing in every style imaginable, the laughter coloring the air in every hue.

To go from that to pale people, pale clothing, even pale flowers, in the space of what still felt like less than a week?

Sakura tried to swallow past the knot in her neck. She didn't really succeed.

She was four years old, and she had just lost her first sibling. She knew it wouldn't be her last.


	5. Academy: Year 2

By the second year of academy, just as Arato had predicted, her beginning class had been chopped in half.

Of those left, the clan children were only down by one, having lost a Sarutobi to an illness which had been, while not fatal, still too debilitating for its host to remain. All of the orphans stuck around, but not only one person who had been in the back row by the middle of the semester stayed, and only four in the fourth row did, leaving them with a class of 26 and seeing them promptly merged with class five, who had, out of their original 47, lost 27 students. The total for the merged class was therefore yanked up to 46, but many were unrecognizable to Sakura. Sensei was still their teacher, at least—the other had been assigned one of the new classes.

Sakura stopped looking at Arden's memories, confused both by their seemingly fictional nature and all too familiar locale. She'd tried, twice, since Kaede's funeral, but each time she'd seen horrific things drawn out as if they were entertainment, so she stepped away.

Unfortunately, her mind still sped ahead. It wasn't as if she was still absorbing the memories, of course—she had enough control to keep that from happening—but she was still maturing far faster than she should have been, far faster than she ever wanted to be.

Fall brought an announcement by the Hokage. It had been eight years since the World War, and the Sandaime Hokage decided it was time to move to a more peaceful village. Starting at once, children would be allowed to delay entry into the academy until age eight. Four of the 36 academies spread throughout the country would be fully shut down, too, and the saved money would go into improving shinobi healthcare. There was more—academy students would now be allowed to take the graduation test three times instead of two before permanently failing, battlefield promotions would be discouraged, Genin would see more "community" based missions…

All of that, of course, had not been put into the speech. While he had made a nearly hour long speech about the era of prosperity they had now certainly entered, most of the changes weren't "officially" announced, only immediately put into action. In fact, Sakura had only learned about most of them because of her mother and talking genin (the former of which had been quite appreciative of the increased emphasis on survival, while the latter had been more than a little upset about the unexpected increase in dog walking missions.)

The odd thing, Sakura thought, was that they had been at peace for about eight years now. It had been, she knew, 16 Konoha when the World War had ended, and it was now 24 Konoha. She wondered what had caused the sudden change.

The new school year also brought a change in behavior for Sakura. Shimura, she decided, had kept his reign of terror for long enough, and she may not have the physical skills to beat him, but then the Yamanaka had never really relied on those skills to see them through in the first place.

First and foremost, she began to invite others, those who were the most bullied to sit at their table. This included many of the orphans from their original class, as well as a good deal of the new students from the other class and several civilian and shinobi-born children besides.

She also began to slowly, slowly force her peers to question whether his opinion really mattered—he wasn't the top scorer in anything, so why did he act as if they needed his approval to tell them whether they were doing well?

She would also poke and prod the students—quietly, gently—to ask others for help, to train at home, to review tests. She taught by example, and she taught by questions. She did not teach by orders, both because she knew none would listen to a four year old and because she didn't particularly want anyone outside her team to realize what she was doing.

That was not to say that her actions went entirely unnoticed, of course—many of the other children were confused both by her sudden extraversion as well as her desire to interact with those more likely to drop out in the first place. Yasuo, in particular, eyed her with an odd mixture of suspicion and gratitude, though she suspected the latter had more to do with taking some of the pressure to help his fellow orphans off his back than anything else.

The enterprise progressed slowly, of course, but as one month bled into another she swore she could see progress, could see her classmates acting less downtrodden then they had before.

The other excellent part of the second year of the academy was that it felt much less like a civilian school. In year one nearly everything they had been taught fell under information everyone could use—how to read and write, how to do simple math, bits and pieces about Konoha's history and greatness meant more for patriotic growth than anything else… the only truly ninja part of the day was physical lessons, and even the requirements to pass to second year in those were barely higher than the Yamanaka's pre-academy requirements.

While this pattern mostly held in year two, there were two exceptions. First and foremost, they had begun simple weapons and taijutsu training—the former of which consisted of learning to throw objects of various sizes, the latter of which involved watching matches of older children as they were critiqued. Within the classroom walls the lessons changed too, becoming less about pure information and more geared towards information as they would use it upon graduation—a math problem, for instance, might ask when a ninja who had started out with 30 kunai and was using them at a rate of two per second should switch to straight taijutsu, given that they wanted two in their hands and two as back-up at the time of the switch?

They had also begun to learn about chakra, how to survive in the woods, how to identify simple illnesses and injuries, simple hand signals to convey various messages, and a more detailed outline of Konohan history.

Compared to last year's emphasis on multiplication and reading comprehension, Sakura's days were vastly improved (even if the class was still moving far too slowly for her liking.)

The relationship of the chinmoku team improved as well. While it was still nearly entirely silent, Sakura began to steadily learn about Juro's frustration over being ignored as the youngest, about his worries over the two deaths that had already occurred with his siblings, about his desire to keep everyone and everything safe. She also began to learn about Shin and the nights he spent wide awake, afflicted with a type of insomnia there was no cure for, particularly not in the clan of the eternal sleepers. She learned of his vast imagination, and how he'd often find himself lost in stories without beginning or end for days until suddenly jerking back into reality.

In turn, they learned about Sakura's own troubles with her senses, about her childhood activities, about her lack of clear direction for the future and her ever present and ever combative thirsts for knowledge and for companionship. They learned about how the latter had been dulled, somewhat, after that time spent in the white room, and how it was harder for her, now, to open up, to feel unworried.

She did not tell them about Arden.

She did not try to hide anything else.

One of the most important things the second year of school brought, however, were the Aburame.

There were two of them, now, in her class. One was relatively normal, if overly clothed and more quiet even than the chinmoku. The other…

Bokuso was one of the tallest in their year, merely six years old but already taller than most who were seven and some who were eight. He was also one of the creepiest, with bugs crawling over any uncovered skin constantly, his afro-like hair masking half his face with a coarse home for some of his bugs, and an overall eerie demeanor which was not helped by his habit of appearing without warning behind the person whose attention he wanted.

Sakura may have been a little bit in love.

It took her until November to figure out what his favorite food was—fresh pineapple, a rare delicacy in the fire nation. It took until December for Juro to get his hands on some, although neither he nor the rest of the chinmoku knew where it came from.

Once everything was in place the trio ambushed the creepy boy.

"You have cornered me before class." Bokuso said. "Why? Because you wish to bribe me into intimidating Shimura. I will accept—why? Because I agree that his behavior is not useful." He held out his hand, and Juro deposited the jar of fruit. All four nodded at each other, and they entered the class.

They were in the middle of a math lesson when Shimura began to shift. His foot jiggled, and he began glancing about instead of watching the lesson. His knee banged the top of his desk, catching Sensei's attention.

"Is something wrong, Shimura?"

"No—no sir." Shimura said. His attention remained faulty for the rest of class, and the second lunch period arrived he disappeared outside, where the entire class could see him jumping all around and running like a madman in the snow. For an entire week after that he acted as if he'd eaten to much sugar, becoming increasingly unable to sit still and pay attention and trying in vain to release the energy whenever they had any kind of break. Bokuso did free him from whatever he had done after that, though—the point was not, after all, to hurt Shimura's education, just knock him and his cronies' view of him down a few pegs and get Sensei to actively discipline him, which the single week did flawlessly.

February, wonderfully, brought Tou-san back.

As usual, the dinner was messy, loud, and full of interruptions, but in due time everyone managed to get their stories out.

Given that Ren had his own family now, and Sayuri was still on a mission, and Aoi had not been heard from in years, and Kaede was… and Kamui had moved out too, the first of the remaining six who got to speak were the twins. As they had warned about in months previous, they had inexplicably dropped out rather than taking the exams, and now explained to Tou-san about the excellent jobs they'd found in a tea house. No one questioned this, though Sakura could see that the rest of her siblings were as confused as she was.

Ayame went next. She was eight years old now, and still oh-so eager to be the first female frontline Yamanaka. She'd taken to hanging about the Akimichi training fields, she explained, and asking for help in everything from Taijutsu to Ninjutsu to weaponry. She was, Sakura readily admitted, quickly improving in everything she set her mind to, even if she knew from Kaa-san's lecturing that her in-class skills weren't exactly up to snuff.

Next was Fujio, seven years old and still as egotistical as ever. He was near the top of his class, and while it looked like he'd never break the top five, his Nara partner—a girl who hated the very idea of being second—was currently the top kunoichi.

Kohana, on the other hand, was having a great time _not_ being a ninja, and was steadily memorizing every single flower sold in Yamanaka's flower shop.

And then it was Sakura's turn.

"And how about you, my little cherry blossom?" Tou-san asked, but before she could answer Fujio interrupted, in a sing-song voice that was designed to irritate.

"Sakura has a crush!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do not! And how would you know, anyway?" Sakura snapped.

"Don't you know that my partner Kansei's cousin is Shin?" Fujio sniped back.

"Fujio, I believe it was Sakura's turn to speak." Kaa-san said.

"I don't want to anymore." Sakura pouted.

"Sakura." Kaa-san said worryingly.

"Fine. I dunno… most of my class is okay, I guess… I like my team… I'm doing well in class…"

Tou-san laughed. "We'll see if you're in a better mood tomorrow, alright?"

The new year brought with it increased independence, and with it increased responsibility. Sakura now made regular supply runs to many of her family members, and was also allowed to explore certain streets, so long as she did so with Shin and Juro. Her increased independence brought with it chances to earn money, and before long the three of them together had gathered enough money to pay for a set of blank notebooks, detailed genin- to chunin-level textbooks, and library passes for them all.

Shin, of course, focused primarily on the literary world, and within a few weeks had scratched out twelve different short stories. The book he'd chosen was a sort of how-to one on poems and the like, and he was now experimenting in how to use specific techniques to invoke thoughts, rather than outright stating them.

Juro, on the other hand, focused primarily on medicine. His textbook was an insanely long (and expensive) one detailing all that was currently known about anatomy, and his notebook was filled with detailed notes about every single injury, illness, and biological change that anyone in any of their families experienced.

Sakura had chosen a textbook focusing on recent available research and the currently accepted methods herself, and it was fascinating in so many ways—in how it coincided with Arden's memories, in how it differed, and in the sheer number of topics it covered. Her notebook was primarily used learning how to write English and take notes about Arden's memories so that they wouldn't be forgotten again.

With the exception of Sakura's notebook (which she merely explained away as trying to create her own code), all of their information was freely shared between them.

By Sakura's birthday, their work had begun to be noticed. Several clan members were poking about, giving her tips on how to make a code, and at this point she felt as if she'd have to create one just so that she'd have something to show.

Juro, too, had begun to be actively sought out, both by the ill and by those involved in the medical field, and apparently showed an unnatural talent in picking up any relevant knowledge that was given. While it would be many, many years until he was invited to the hospital—even to watch—he was routinely praised in taking such an interest so early, and his mother had begun coaching him in the preparation of healthy food too.

As for Shin? Well, he was now in charge of story-time for all of his young nieces and nephews. While he mostly kept himself to published books or well-known tales, the constant pressure did work in getting him to orate a few of his stories to watchful ears. The Nara, while generally quite a quiet clan, seemed to be doing the best to allow this part of him to flourish, even if the adults never said anything directly.

Sakura's favorite part of the year, however, came at the end-of-year exams. They'd had them last summer, of course, but the simple classes had meant they couldn't count as a challenge at all, and out of the clan children only the Inuzaka had gotten less than a perfect score, and while Sakura had not done nearly as well on the physical portion as the mental, she was also a great deal younger than the rest of her class, and at four had not had nearly the coordination required to ace it.

This year?

Only six students got a perfect score on the written, one of which was Sakura. On the physical portion, while her five years left her with a body that was on average two years smaller than her classmates, it was also now nearly as flexible, and constant practice and Juro spending a lot of time going through his anatomy book for any tips allowed her score for the first time to reach the upper quarter of the class (she suspected its value would decrease quickly as they moved into taijutsu and strength-focused activities.)

More importantly, however, was Shimura's scores.

"Ryoto Shimura" was ranked, out of the remaining 112 students, 26th. He'd been 5th the year before, and did not take the drop very well.

Actually, that was a bit too much of an understatement.

"I _said_ retest me! There's no way I scored that low!" Shimura snapped.

"I do not make mistakes." Sensei Masaru said.

"I am not _26_ _th_." He spit out the ranking like a curse. "I expected my ranking to rise, not fall. There must be some kind of error!"

Sensei sighed impatiently. Sakura couldn't figure out why he hadn't already punished him. "This year the written test increased substantially in length, difficulty, and range. So, too, has the physical test—it no longer tests solely for one's health, but now covers such diverse skills as flexibility, strength, respiratory endurance, stamina, coordination, speed, balance, accuracy, agility… simply put, it is no longer enough to do fine. You must now be excellent."

"But I know I'm in the top five of this class! You're not giving me my due!"

Sensei blinked. "There are two other classes. Also, you are not in the top five of the class. You are in the top ten."

Shimura was about to snap something else, when a shadow fell over him and all of the classmates that had been not so secretly watching looked up.

"That's enough, Ryoto."

"Tou-san!" Shimura gasped.

The two disappeared. The next day (the last day of class), Shimura returned as a much more sedate classmate, and immediately went about apologizing to Sensei Masaru and assuring him he understood that it was his own responsibility to improve his grade. The rest of the day saw Shimura going out of his way to not interact with any of his former gang, and make an active attempt to talk to the clan children, which did not go well—Sakura may have been the only one to actively try to stop him, but that did not mean that his actions were approved of.

Hell, even the Uchiha didn't talk to him and they had never shown the slightest inclination towards rest of the class.

The end of Sakura's second academy year was brought in by another survey. Unlike year one's, which was primarily a question of what careers they were curious about, this year the main purpose was to sign up for additional classes for next year. Each child was given a slip of paper to write down their ideal careers on, and another with a list of possible courses and instructions to choose two.

Chinmoku, universally and silently, agreed that they would break their clan's tradition: none would take the same classes. They were getting quite good at studying from each other, after all, and it would be best to get as much information as possible.

Juro went first, selecting basic medical training and battle strategy. Then Shin went, selecting diplomacy and interrogation for himself. Then Sakura selected cryptography and fuinjutsu. They, again, returned their papers first. Behind them (because they were now in the front row), the other Ino-Shika-Cho trio—nicknamed Zatsuon—hadn't figured out that it was alright to split up for their elective courses, and were now railing at each other in a desperate bid to get their way.

All in all, Sakura was very much looking forward to third year, as by all accounts it was the first that would be a truly ninja education.


	6. Academy: Year 3

Sakura's nose was really itchy.

She'd been sitting in the same place for over three hours, and by now she was beginning to lose feeling in much of her body. This, unfortunately, did not include her nose.

It was their fourth 'field day'—short tests meant to determine their current skills—and this one focused on tracking and not being found.

In other words, they were playing hide and seek.

Sakura had started as a hider, having been given the scenario that she had accidently sent off an alarm after taking back a scroll (which she now had tied to her back) that Konoha's enemies had stolen.

The problem was that Sakura was having a lot of trouble believing that "Konoha's enemies" could have stolen the scroll in the first place.

In her field there were three on each side. She and Yasuo were hiding, a boy named Taiko Honda had already been caught, and Sachiko Morino, Shimura's old crony Ren Souto, and her own cousin Inohina Yamanaka were trying to track them down.

It had been three hours! There were five fields, and they had been the third group to get a turn on field one. Neither of the other two games had lasted more than two hours—after all, so far most of their lessons had been more focused on tracking than hiding.

Case in point: Sakura's grand plan had been to race around in a zigzag pattern (the hardest to track, they had been told), before finding a bush that most closely matched the shade of her shirt, squashing herself almost entirely under it, and refusing to move no matter how many creepy-crawlies came to check her out.

All three searchers had passed her hiding space three times, and none had made any attempt to be quiet about it. Yasuo (a hider like her) had actually used that to his advantage, slowly following after them just out of sight rather than just staying in one place—he'd even waved at her the second time they'd gone by.

She should've done that.

Her nose _really_ itched.

"Exam finished." The proctor said, appearing from nowhere as the trio (led by Souto, who had, for some reason, decided it was best for them to search together for the entirety of the exercise) once again passed by less than a meter away from her. "Morino, 33. Souto, 0. Yamanaka, Inohina, 0. Honda, 33. Yamanaka, Sakura, 75. Yasuo, 100. Return to the group."

"Wait, what?!" Hina and Souto shouted. Sakura scrambled out of the bush, scratching her nose wildly as she did so, and Yasuo tapped Ren's shoulder.

"R-remember, she said, th-that our scores are… are based on how, how many people we… successfully… caught or h-how m-many hours we suc-successfully hid." Morino forced out.

They began jogging to the edge of the field.

"Well, then, all three of us should have gotten 33—not just you! And why did your sister get 75, Inohina?"

"She's not my sister—she's my cousin!" Inohina griped.

"I saw her." Yasuo said. "I bet she was docked for that."

"I—I w-was the, the one to… to spot Honda." Morino said. "S-so I-I got the, um, the points."

As they arrived back at the front of the field, where the next group was impatiently waiting, Souto was still complaining.

"Yamanaka, Sakura, you've been reassigned to field four, to seek with Ryota Shimura and Yami Suzuki." The proctor said.

"Hai." She said. she turned left and began jogging to the other field as the proctor called orders to her companions behind her.

This would be more interesting than freezing in place for three hours, at least.

Shimura was one thing; he'd mostly calmed since the exam scores last year, even if he had thrown himself into training to the point that she was sure he did little else. He had, at least, stopped bullying others—in fact, while he would go out of his way to be friendly to any clan members, he outright refused to acknowledge anyone else. This test, thankfully, did not require him to, so she was sure he'd put up a good challenge to race against. As for Yami Suzuki, he was not a member of her class, and so all she knew about him was that he was bottom of his own, and had barely scraped a pass last year.

Which meant she really had to worry about only one tracking competitor, though she had no idea about the hiders.

She arrived at the field just as its own chunin proctor was sending the hiders in. She recognized none of them by sight, but one was fleeing with his dog, so she'd have to think about how to catch an Inuzaka.

The proctor wasted no time upon her arrival. "As I'm sure you already know, you must find as many of the enemy—who have stolen a scroll from Konoha—as you can. Your scores will be based on the number caught, and if all are caught everyone on your team will receive a bonus. Highest score possible for this portion is 110. Highest score possible overall is 210. Begin."

"Split up for the first hour, meet up then?" Shimura asked. It was a good plan—allowing them time to boost their own scores first, then work together to find any that had escaped all three of them afterwards.

"Sounds good." She said.

"See you in an hour." Suzuki nodded.

The three of them vanished into the forested field.

Alright… three enemies, all of whom have to remain unseen for three hours. Some would likely hide using the natural vegetation like she did, some might go with Yasuo's plan (a harder option, actually, given that they'd split up), some may even use what skills they already had to camouflage themselves in less obvious places.

But where to begin?

The one enemy she knew anything about was an Inuzaka, which meant he had to plan not only for himself but also for his recently obtained puppy, who Sakura knew from her own Inuzaka classmates would still be unable to do just about anything, and was _not_ potty trained.

So it was unlikely he was hiding in the trees, where he'd have to worry about the visibility of wetness running down the trunk, or using his own clothing to keep that from happening.

Inuzaka also tended to be hyperactive. She was fairly sure she'd never seen any of them sit still for longer than about five minutes, which meant this one had to do something that allowed him to move.

He would also have incredibly good smell, allowing him to tell where his seekers had already been.

Which meant… she needed to douse as much of the forest as possible in her smell. That, at least, she was already doing. Since they'd been sent in, she'd been systematically going over the entire field's area, starting with the left border and making her way right. As she went she glanced around at every tree, bush, and rock she came across, but she hadn't yet noticed anything out of the usual.

What else could she do?

She skidded to a stop.

Traps.

Most traps, of course, would take too long to set up, but she knew a quick wire one that could work. She pulled some out of her pocket and began.

About fifteen minutes later, still making her way through the field and setting up traps as she went, she heard a cry. Wasting no time, and knowing that Shimura would be hot on her heels, she whipped towards the noise and took off.

Sure enough, there was the Inuzaka, carrying his tiny pup in his arms and trying desperately to untangle his feet from their wire trappings.

The second she laid eyes on him the proctor appeared.

"Inuzaka out. Yamanaka leading."

She untangled the boy and vanished, taking him with her. Sakura wasted no time turning back around—she'd only managed to trap about a ninth of the entire field, and wanted to get at least a third done before they had to team up. As she did, though, she nearly ran into Shimura.

"Nice." He said, glancing at the remains of the trap. "Don't expect to get so lucky again." He disappeared, much faster than she could. This could not become a battle of speed, or really a battle of any physical attribute, and she wasn't exactly that far ahead of him in any mental ones either. No, she had to get really lucky, or she had to use—no. Not worth it. This was just a test, so she would just have to get lucky.

The next half hour passed uneventfully. Sakura soon had the preparation of her simple trap down to a science, and was constantly on alert for any movement in her field of vision. She'd been sidetracked by squirrels twice, and a deer once, but so far there was no sign of the other two enemies, and she knew she would have been alerted if they were captured.

So, as she neared the meet-up time, she knew she'd have to change her strategy. She was currently ahead, yes, but Shimura would almost definitely grab the victory unless she thought of a better plan.

The problem, of course, was that she had nothing. She'd arrived at the field too late to glean any information, information that both Shimura and Suzuki had, about the other two hiders, and she'd already caught the only one she had an idea how to. So far she was simply hoping that one of them was emulating him, and that really wasn't working out.

Then Sakura noticed something odd, a mound of dirt about three meters away from her.

It was kind of lumpy, for one, and not the kind of lumpy that was generally found in nature, and for another she happened to know that the Senju who had just been integrated into her class happened to already be training in earth techniques. She poked it with a stick. The proctor appeared.

"Senju out. Yamanaka leading."

Ha! She didn't need another technique after all!

…admittedly, her original plan had not been what had allowed her to see him, but results, she figured, were what mattered. Thankfully, this meant she now had the lead—combined, her score would be about 142, which would likely put her in the upper quarter of the class: very few, after all, seemed to be able to evade being noticed by someone for any more than two hours, and she was fairly sure that on average each of her classmates had only managed to catch sight of about one 'enemy' each, placing them at a wonderful score of 100. Still, getting a score of 185 would be nice, and almost certainly put her at or near the top of the class.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. The hour passed, and the trio met up and began to systematically search each part of the arena. The girl that Sakura had not recognized turned out to be a shinobi daughter who was barely doing better than Suzuki, which made her ability to evade them stunning. It was Shimura, in the end, who found her dangling desperately to the top of a tree at the very right edge of the field, right wear Suzuki had started.

"Inuzaka combined, 77. Senju combined, 33. Okada combined, 33. Yamanaka combined, 152. Shimura combined, 143. Suzuki combined, 10. Dismissed."

.

Sakura waited outside the academy with Juro for Shin to finish. He'd scored 33, because he'd caught one enemy, but only managed to hide for twelve minutes before being found. Shin, Juro told her, had been a seeker first, and caught two of the hiders—the third, from the Mitokado clan, having successfully stayed out of sight for the full three hours.

Games like this took place once a week every week. The last one had been a classroom wide race to decode as many messages as possible—Kenshin Sarutobi came in first there, with the Zatsuon team member Taro Nara second and Sakura herself third (Shin had been fourth.) The week before that had been obstacle courses (the less said about Sakura's performance the better), and the week before that it had been a sort of scavenger hunt, with nearly every sort of question, trick, and double meaning necessary to get the answer.

Sakura had actually won that one.

They weren't told what the tests were until the day of, and the day the test started varied as often as the length of the test did.

The worst part, at least to Sakura, was that not one bit of it included chakra.

It was explained, at the beginning of the semester, that due to the new rule that children only had to take the final three years of academy no chakra would be taught until then. Instead year three would become entirely about tests and refining skills.

Shin appeared from around the corner (with a high final score of 166), and the three left the academy.

It was late November now, and the chill in the air was unavoidable even with the throng of people crowding the street. As they were third year students, the chinmoku team had been given more freedom, and they now had two hours after class to get home. Sometimes they used the choice time to go to the library, and other times they spent the hour hanging about in a restaurant or wandering around Konoha. Mostly, though, they went to training ground forty.

Training ground forty was one of the smallest in Konoha. It was about half the size of the playground it neighbored, and was walled in on two sides and fenced in on both others. The ground was covered in stone tiles, and the walls had some rudimentary wooden targets stuck on, but it was otherwise empty.

Almost every day, immediately after academy ended, it would promptly fill with seven children.

There were the chinmoku, of course. They'd been the ones to find the training ground in the first place and realize it was never reserved due to its relative uselessness. Bokuso was the next to be invited—while his general demeanor still creeped Shin out, most of the rest of the group had gotten used to it and Sakura still thought it was the coolest thing ever. Juro had chosen the next person to include: Aiko Utatane, who he'd met in the medical texts area of the library. She was six, like Shin, and was well known in her own class for being able to work with anyone. Her general demeanor, actually, was quite pleasant, and Sakura had no problems imagining her as a medic-nin later in her career.

After Aiko the last two members of Training Ground 40 came very quickly. Shin invited Yasuo, Sakura invited Sachiko Morino, and their group was complete.

And so, every day, for about an hour a day, the training ground was filled with seven children doing something that they were absolutely not supposed to.

"You got it to stick!" Sakura said as she opened the training ground's gate.

"Yes. New record: fourteen seconds." Bokuso replied. As he did so, a single leaf dropped off his forehead.

Practicing in chakra wasn't necessarily _illegal_ , per se. Technically, anyone in the nation could do as much as they liked with chakra. Realistically, actually, many major clans—the Hyuga and Uchiha most noticeably—taught their children how to use chakra from a very young age, often well before they entered the academy. That said, the Yamanaka, Akimichi, and Nara clans were all of the firm belief that they should do as the Hokage suggested, and following his announcement about late entry to the academy he… encouraged… clans not to teach their children chakra until the academy did, to allow each child to start on even footing.

Sakura disagreed.

The fact was, she was already insanely further ahead than any civilian. There was a reason that civilian children and even non-clan shinobi children rarely showed up as top scorers in the academy. Sakura had, after all, been taught the basics since well before she started the academy, and she continued to be intermittently trained by her clansmen after entry. And this wasn't an advantage that was liable to go away—even when Yamanaka became genin and got more private tutoring, they would begin instructions on clan techniques, something non-clan members certainly wouldn't have access to.

So, given that, she'd never quite understood the argument that she should be held back to give others time to catch up. She had no problem with Sensei spending more time with non-clan children, of course, and she fully agreed that every child should get the chance to flourish, but intentionally making other children weaker? That didn't make sense, especially because non-clan children were (at least in this case) just as capable of starting to use chakra at academy year three as she was.

Case in point: out of all of them, while Utatane and Sakura were generally the best at the leaf-sticking exercise, Morino was directly behind them and rapidly improving. Yasuo, while not as quick to identify or successfully use his chakra, had taken to taijutsu like a duck to water and was now exercising for up to two hours every day after the academy. Meanwhile, Arata Akimichi didn't look like he'd stay to the end of the year, Taro Nara was so sure in his own superiority he outright refused to study, Inohina Yamanaka was more focused on who's dating who than anything Sensei said, and Teru Inuzaka had some of the worst written scores in the class.

There was no reason that they should not start chakra now; give the late coming students extra lessons if necessary, but Sakura had no plans to slow down.

So.

The leaf sticking exercise.

Sakura was up to nearly two minutes now. It wasn't ideal, of course, and both her control and her capacity could use some work, but it wasn't half bad.

Juro, at least, had no problems with the latter, and Shin was miles ahead in the former—he just couldn't maintain chakra output to save his life. Really, they did balance each other quite well. Still, practice made perfect and training ground forty had everything they could ever want—space, leaves, and, of course, occasional distrations.

"It is I, the Mighty Duy!" Ah… and there was today's entertainment.

One of the walls of the training ground was a building that held a long term daycare, a popular childcare option for non-clan ninja. Every day a genin team would be brought in for eight hours each to help care for the children. While most went unnoticed, too quiet to be heard through the thick walls and otherwise, Sakura was sure, doing their jobs more than adequately, there was one key exception:

"Hey Mighty Duy!" The seven on training ground forty screamed.

"Hello voices in the wall! It is truly wonderful to hear you again!"

Might Duy was, as far as the seven could tell, a relatively recent genin whose team tended to have the afternoon daycare mission about three times a week every other week. He was, they quickly learned, an incredibly hard working ninja, and he seemed to be surprisingly good at keeping the children in the building happy—at least, when he was there there was a lot more audible laughter.

He was also loud.

Very loud.

Out of all of the ninja, and daycare workers, and young children that came in and out of the daycare, Duy was the only one whose presence (or lack thereof) they could be absolutely sure of.

"It is a lovely day, is it not?" Duy shouted.

"Absolutely wonderful!" Sakura shouted back.

There was the typical muffled speaking, then "but I don't understand, Sensei, why I should not talk to them?" More typical muffled words. "But this is my normal volume, Sensei!"

Ah. Might Duy. What a great guy.

After finishing their chakra training for the day (and getting to listen to Might Duy convince at least twelve children to convert to vegetable lovers), Sakura went home.

By November, Ren, Sayuri, Aoi, Kamui, Akina, and Arato had completely moved out, and Tou-san hadn't been back in months, which meant that it was only Kaa-san and the five youngest children.

The good news about that, at least, was that Sakura only had to share with Kohana, and everyone else got their own rooms. Ayame's was the largest, as at nine she was the oldest, and Fujio's was the furthest away from the rest of theirs. Kohana and Sakura had never moved out of their first bedroom, and Himari got the remaining one.

Lucky little four year old.

That was not to say that the house was ever really empty. Ren, his wife Ikue, and their young son would stop by frequently, especially now that Ikue was pregnant again. Sayuri was also in and out quite often, especially as she'd just broken up with her boyfriend and hadn't found a new one yet. Aoi had disappeared, and Sakura was willing to bet anything that he as well as the twins were involved in long term infiltration like their dad, but perhaps at an even higher level. Kamui, despite being a fulltime resident of the Akimichi clan, was also constantly dropping off his cooking experiments, and while some needed to be disposed of in a hole at least ten feet deep, the majority was edible and some of it was even tasty.

Kaa-san's sister and her children would also frequently visit the family's personal training ground (which was larger than their own), and Kohana would invite over some of her civilian friends at least once a week.

All of this meant that as she entered the house she was not surprised to be nearly barreled over by a terrified Fujio fleeing from a screaming Kaa-san, while Himari was screaming for help from her position stuck inside a kitchen cabinet and Kamui was trying to help her out while juggling at least ten bentos and one of Fujio's partners tried to wrap up the other's bleeding hand.

"Hi." Sakura said.

Himari cried. Kaa-san screamed about murder. Kamui grunted. Fujio's partners didn't even notice.

"What happened?"

"Fujio and his friends decided to try throwing kunai blindfolded without supervision, with expected results, and when Kaa-san went to kill Fujio and patch up Ryoken Himari decided to try to touch the ceiling again and accidently got herself caught in a cabinet. I was here to drop off some bentos, but the fridge seems to be broken so I'm going to leave them at Aunt Hina's house." Kamui said.

"Is Inohina Yamanaka from my class related to Aunt Hina?" Sakura asked. She really hoped not. She moved to the injury cabinet as she did, pulling out some gauze and a bit of chakra-infused paste.

"Not directly, I don't think. You had the ancestry lessons more recently, anyway." Kamui successfully extracted the still crying Himari from the cabinets without dropping a bento and unceremoniously plopped the still crying girl onto the floor. She didn't look to be too injured—just upset and achy—so Sakura didn't bother to get anything else out of the injury cabinet and just tossed the already grabbed objects at Fujio's partners' heads. They caught them and began working to take care of the injury.

"Alright, I'm going to go to Aunt Hina's. See you later. Himari, Kansai, Ryoken, stop being stupid. Bye!" Kamui disappeared. Kansai and Ryoken did too, apparently more concerned with getting away from Kaa-san than helping the now-caught Fujio from getting free. Himari glared at Sakura.

Himari, unlike all of the rest of the children, would not be admitted into the academy at all. Her birth had been a hard one, far harder than Sakura's, and it quickly became clear that there was no way she would be able to be a ninja. Her development was somewhat delayed, too, at least in terms of what was normal in this world. From what Sakura could tell, Arden would have thought Himari's behavior was normal for her age (except, perhaps, for her ability and desire to climb on everything and anything.)

"Do you want me to read you a story?" Sakura asked. She'd gotten a copy of a recently written epic on Konoha's creation from the library the day before, and hadn't yet started it.

"Yes please." 

.

That night, well after dark, Sakura suddenly awoke. She'd been fast asleep, having only bothered to review a story Arden had remembered involving elemental 'bending' and giant flying bison before bed, and hadn't expected to get back up until the morning.

Nevertheless, she was awake now, so she may as well try to understand why.

Kohana was still asleep in the bed beside Sakura's own. She'd arrived home late—that day was the first she was allowed to start learning how to arrange flowers, and she hadn't come home until only a minute or two before dinner.

Himari, Sakura thought, probably wasn't awake either—she tended to be a deep sleeper, but when she did wake up everyone knew.

As for Fujio, Sakura didn't know, but—

There was a thump on the staircase.

Sakura slipped out of bed.

"Kaa-san?" She asked, squinting into the darkness.

"Hush, sweetheart." Kaa-san said. "Go back to bed." She sounded tired.

"Are you okay?"

"Go to bed." Kaa-san said again. She slipped into her own bedroom.

Sakura blinked at the door. Her mother, she knew, worked at T&I, and while she went out of her way to hide it from her children, sometimes her exhaustion and bad days slipped out. The bad days, however, seemed to be coming more frequently.

Arden's memories of Sakura's own world weren't ones she looked at that frequently. They had clearly been watched as a story, and one with a kind of annoying main character, and unlike most of Arden's other memories they weren't in anything resembling order.

One thing she did know, however, was that there wasn't just one World War.

She didn't know when the next would come, when the world would be decimated once more, but ever since—

Ever since Kaede's death, it had been harder to not be aware of the impending danger. Kaa-san's increasing workload and difficulties also didn't help, and Sakura was becoming increasingly aware that when it did arrive, she would either be too young and helpless to do anything or old enough to be forced to fight, to kill.

She didn't know which would be worse.

She went back to bed.

The next morning, Kaa-san seemed fine, and nothing was mentioned at breakfast, but as she walked to school she heard whispers, murmurs just too loud to be ignored. Uzushiogakure had caught some Iwa spies, they said, and managed to get out the names of the Iwa spies in Konoha. There were several, they said, dozens, hundreds! Konoha must retaliate, they said. Konoha must do something.

Sakura slipped through the academy doors and wished desperately that Sensei Masaru would work them too hard for any more gossip to be heard that day.


	7. Academy: Year 4, Part 1

The fourth year of the academy started with a new Sensei. Sensei Masaru, they were told, would go back to working with younger students, and Sensei Utatane (a tall, austere woman who had to be at least forty) would take over for their class.

There were now 120 students in Sakura's grade split over three classes. There had been about ninety at the end of the last year classes, but another thirty had decided to take the Hokage up on his late academy offer. The classes, therefore, were completely rearranged: The top forty students were divided into two groups and placed in two classrooms, with the next forty students taking up the remaining twenty spots in each class. The bottom ten students of year three, as well as all incoming students, were placed in the last classroom.

Sakura didn't expect many of them to last.

More important than any administrative changes, however, was the addition in material: chakra manipulation was officially a part of class.

It was only a few weeks after class had started, August 15th, but they'd already finished the basic theory and Sensei Utatane had them working with leaves. She hadn't batted an eye to how over a quarter of the class (including all of the seven except Aiko Utatane, who had been placed in the other class) already knew the basics of the exercise, or that many of them were capable of maintaining the connection for about five minutes. Instead, she simply put more leaves on them, or instructed them to move the leaves along their bodies and spin them.

The best part outside of chakra use, at least to Sakura, was the sparring lessons which happened every other day. Last year they had been required to use the standard academy stances to prove that they could both learn them and use them effectively, but this year the emphasis was more on making sure they had at least some talent before graduation. Now they were allowed to use whatever skill, whatever styles they liked—once a week they were even allowed to use weaponry in addition to their bodies.

Sakura, now six, relished using Yamanaka style eleven. The Yamanaka had in total well over twenty styles, each meant to work best with whatever individual jutsus each clan member could perform best. While Sakura had not yet been taught any of the clan's jutsu (that was reserved for genin), Yamanaka style eleven was chosen due to her body-type as well as her father's own talents (which relied heavily on only entering someone else's mind for a split second, just enough to trip them up), her mother's apparently being irrelevant in battle.

Her style, as well as her constant practice, meant she finally began climbing in class rankings, but she was still in the second quarter of the class and it did not look like that would change until she stopped lagging behind them so much physically (when you lagged anywhere between one and three years behind your classmates, making up the ground was not exactly easy, and she was a bit too pain averse to excel in taijutsu anyway.)

The worst part of the new academy focus, however, would come in one week.

In one week she would be expected to start practicing chakra sensing.

She'd told her group—Shin and Juro, Aiko and Bokuso, Yasuo and Sachiko—about her time spent in the white, white room the day the chakra sensing lessons were first brought up. She'd told them about the ocean, the flood of information, and she told them about how she hadn't tried to open the door that led to her chakra sensing since.

They'd supported her, and her parents had too, assuring her that if she didn't want to she could just not attend the classes.

She knew better.

War was coming, though she didn't know when, and it would be best to have, and have practiced, every advantage possible.

But the first class was still a week away and the thought of opening that door, allowing those sensations to overflow… she was still cautious of subsuming the other life's memories, and that had been so much less than the pain that the sheer amount of chakra caused by itself.

"You okay?" Bokuso muttered from behind her. Sakura shook herself and her eyes snapped back on Sensei Utatane, who was describing military strategies used in the Great War.

"Fine." She mumbled back.

That afternoon, after class had ended, the usual group met up at the usual training ground. Aiko Utatane showed up last, having been held back in her class, and even before she'd open the gates she'd begun to rant.

"I. Hate. Girls!"

"…You are a girl." Shin said.

"Other girls!" She snapped. "Girls who—who don't care about anything but catching husbands!"

Sakura frowned. She'd noticed, of course, that many of her classmates (mostly female) had stopped paying as much attention to the Sensei and started paying more attention to whichever male had done the best in sparring, but she hadn't paid much attention to them—they'd behaved normally when talking to her, Shin, and Juro, so she hadn't seen a reason to care.

"Are they that bad?" She asked.

"You're six," Aiko sighed. "They don't see you as competition. I'm eight. I'm competition." 

Sakura was still confused.

"Look, these girls, especially the civilians, have gotten it into their minds that they need to get a boy interested in them. I'm top of my class, so most boys willingly talk to me when they won't talk to any other girl. That makes me a target, so I have to deal with wads of spit in my hair and people trying to trip me in the hallway and all the girls trying to ostracize me and things like that."

Sachiko Morino nodded. "I've started to be targeted too, especially by your cousin Inohina." She told Sakura. "She's really interested in Juro's older brother—"

"What?" Juro shouted.

"so she's upset that he won't be friends with her, because she thinks that'll catch Shichiro's attention, and besides you and Aiko—who's not in our class—I'm the only girl he regularly hangs out with."

"No, let's go back to Inohina having a crush on _Shichiro_. Since when?" 

"Who cares about that?" Yasuo whined. "No one's tried to come after me! Am I undesirable?"

"Yes." Everyone else said reflexively. He groaned.

"I'll have you know I'm a catch! And, anyway, I'm in the top quarter of the top half of our year! If they're trying to target the best fighters, they should go after me."

"Leaving aside that you think you're one of the best fighters," Shin said, "you are an orphan. While some clan girls, particularly those who are particularly gossipy like Inohina, are doing this, most of the worst offenders are children of civilians. They're trying to catch someone who's high in social status, too."

"As proof, while Ryota is the most frequently targeted, Hiashi and Hizashi are nearly as much."

Yasuo frowned.

"She is explaining their stupidity: Main house Hyuuga never marry outside the family." Bokuso explained.

"So—what? Am I just unwanted?"

"Oh, shut up." Juro groaned. "It's not like anyone else in this group are one of their targets. I'm the closest, and that's because Inohina wants to date my _brother_."

"Well, it's not like you want to date her anyway." Aiko said, but Juro flushed. "No! You like her!"

"I don't know." He said. "She's pretty."

"She's a gossip." Sakura said bluntly. "And a whiner." Shin snickered.

"Can we talk about something else?" Juro muttered.

"Seconded!" Yasuo said.

They abandoned the conversation and turned to training instead—Sakura was having some trouble with one of the new pen techniques they were learning in her calligraphy course, and Sachiko was the only other one in her group who was taking it.

That evening, at dinner, the topic popped back into Sakura's head.

"Some girls in my class are trying to flirt with some of the boys." She said when it came to be her time to sleep. "I don't understand why."

"Yes," Kaa-san started, "You're probably still a bit too young for that. You just have to remember that it's not their fault—a lot of them are pushed to act that way by their parents."

"Why?"

"Oh—I know!" Ayame said. "It's because a lot of their parents only had them enroll in the ninja academy to get husbands. Auntie was ranting about that just last week."

"That's right in many cases. While clan girls are generally aware they are capable of doing just as well as boys in shinobi careers, many civilians and pairings where only the father is a ninja think finding a partner at as young an age as possible is the way to go. Anyway, as I said before, you're much too young—I wouldn't expect you to actually want to date anyone for a good five or six more years."

"Who _would_ you date, if you had to date someone in your class?" Ayame asked.

"Bokuso." Sakura stated firmly. Ayame scrunched up her nose.

"Isn't he the one who lets bugs crawl all over his face, even when he's talking to someone?" Kohana asked. Sakura nodded.

"He doesn't care what anyone thinks."

"I saw a big worm crawl into his ear once," Fujio interrupted, "and not come back out. He's gross. Pick someone else."

"I can pick whoever I want to!" Sakura snapped.

"I pick Tsubasa." Himari decided. Kaa-san sighed.

"You can't pick your cousin, Himari."

"Why not?"

"You have to pick someone you're _not_ related to." Fujio said.

"Ren married Ikue, and she was a Yamanaka." Sakura pointed out. "I change my mind. I'm dating Kohana." 

"Ikue wasn't a close relation—she and your brother only shared a great great grandmother." Kaa-san said.

"I chose you too." Kohana said.

"You can't chose family members, and you can't chose girls!" Fujio snapped.

"Why not?" Sakura asked. "Ren did it."

"Which boy are you going to date, Fujio?" Himari asked.

"I'm not—you can't—" Fujio started, but he didn't seem to know where to finish.

"Dating is different than friendships, and pointless to explain until you're at the right age." Kaa-san said. "You can, if you like, date girls, but you can never date someone who's close in relation to you and I assure you that you won't want to. Now, let's set the topic aside."

"I'm still going to marry Tsubasa." Himari mumbled rebelliously. Sakura thought that was funny—Himari might think of Tsubasa as a friend, but Tsubasa just saw his small cousin as an annoying brat, and generally ran in the other direction when she came near.

"I think I've convinced my sensei to let me be frontline." Ayame offered up, and the conversation moved on.

A few days later Kaa-san asked Sakura to pick up a package of spices from her old Akimichi teammate, and so that day she left the training grounds early to get the package in time to start dinner with.

Konohagakure seemed to have grown since the last time she spent simply wandering around. Mostly she just went from home to school to the training ground and back again, but every once in a while she had to go somewhere else, like the Akimichi compound or the library, and she was always amazed at seeing a new building having appeared from seeming thin air, or a new stall producing tantalizing aromas at the corner of two roads, or a new bridge crossing one of the smaller streets that branched off the main roads to allow for easier travel.

Today, she noticed that a couple buildings seemed to have new floors added on top of the existing infrastructure, each balanced precariously on top of what had once been a roof. She'd heard some adults talking about the dangers of the new additions that people kept making—how they caught on fire more easily, and sometimes collapsed for seemingly no reason—but they had also said that as long as the walls of Konoha limited expansion outward, and the land within the city was restricted by training grounds, the city would continue to expand up. Sakura supposed that was true; even in her own compound there were less and less two story homes like her own being built and more eight or nine story ones, each meant to hold multiple families instead of just one. The Akimichi were the same and just last month her mother's old teammate had moved into one of the additions, so now Sakura had to climb up four flights of stairs just to get to him.

After retrieving the package, and politely having a 'small snack' that was larger than the dinner she usually had, Sakura made her way out of the Akimichi compound and back into the main streets.

She moved towards the adjoining street, but before she could start heading home a shout caught her attention and her head turned almost without her meaning it to.

The shout had come from a man holding a small child to his chest as two Uchiha police officers went through a bag in front of him. He'd shouted because they were now trying to grab the child from him, and he didn't want to let go. Sakura crept closer.

"I haven't done anything wrong!" The man said, but the Uchiha barely looked like they were listening.

"As we said before, a man matching your description was just reported fleeing a corner store robbery not two blocks from here. This is just standard procedure." The first Uchiha rattled off, looking bored.

"And did that man have a child with him?" The man snapped.

"You could have stashed the kid somewhere, then picked him up after you were done." The second Uchiha said. As he did so he turned the man's bag inside out, dumping its contents onto the ground, and began examining its seams.

"I wouldn't do that! I swear!" The man said.

The second Uchiha seemed to have finally decided the man wasn't hiding anything in his backpack, and handed the empty sack back to the man. The first Uchiha gave him back his (now wailing) child too. 

"You're clear. You're free to go." The first said. The two turned and walked towards Sakura, down the street. They nodded to her as they passed.

Sakura felt funny. She rushed forward, helping the man pick up the baby supplies and jug that he'd been carrying.

"Thank you, dear, but you don't have to. I'll have this all put away in just a moment." He said.

"It's okay, I have the time." She said. She'd have to rush home, but she would make it. "Why… why did they treat you like that?"

The man snorted a laugh. "That's how they treat poor folk, and country folk, and immigrant folk… any folk that aren't ninja or merchant, really." He crammed the last dumped items into the backpack, and calmed his son down enough to stand up and sling the pack over his shoulder. "Don't you worry about it anyway. There's no need for you to be concerned." He turned, and made his way down the street, away from the Akimichi compound.

Sakura thought of bringing up what she had seen at dinner that night, but Tou-san had unexpectedly come home, so the evening was spent catching him up on everything that had happened and laughing at the funny stories the others told. So the experience—and the funny feeling it had given her—were laid aside for the time being, and then the next day it was the first day she was going to be sensing, so there was no time to contemplate it then either.

"You'll be fine." Juro said. Shin nodded. They'd come to pick her up that day, instead of just letting her walk to the academy alone. "You can always change your mind, too—don't forget that."

"I'm not going to change my mind." Sakura said. A short phrase Arden knew, '—third shinobi war—', kept playing in her head, and she wanted to be prepared for its full consequences. "Do you know if Sensei Utatane will be the one teaching it? She's not a sensor, after all."

"No, I asked my Dad and they bring an expert in if the teacher can't do it. I wonder who it'll be." Shin said.

The man who appeared shortly after lunch was around twenty, by Sakura's estimation. He had gray hair, but his skin was clear of wrinkles and his green eyes seemed too kind to have gone through too much of life.

"Hello, my name is Dan Kato and I will be your chakra sense instructor."

He started them out by sorting them into groups that were already actively using their sense, those who were passively using it, and those who had been tested as positive for the skill but hadn't put it to use yet. Before he even started, however, he took Sakura aside, having her stand apart from the group.

Then he doubled.

Sakura blinked.

Everyone, in the end, knew of the shadow clone technique. It wasn't so much that it was commonly seen—after all, it took quite a bit of Chakra to do, so generally only jonin could use it and even they did so sparingly. It was more that when the Senju had first come up with the technique it had ended up being the lynch pin that allowed them to win the Great War, so even in the first semester of history the might of the technique was stressed.

Still.

It was the first time she had seen it in action. It was… disturbing, to see two of the same person and know that neither was an illusion or a twin.

The first—original—one spoke. "Those who haven't used chakra sense, with me. Yamanaka, you too." The second spoke. "The rest of you with me."

Dan focused on the ones who hadn't used it first, spending the time to get them set up and meditating. it was only once most of them were in a trance, or at least faking it, that he turned to Sakura.

"Can you try to open your senses willingly?" He asked.

Sakura grimaced, but nodded. Never mind that chakra sensing was, well, _potent_ , or that it didn't seem to have any sort of middle ground, only on or off, the fact was that because she'd managed to start (slowly) integrating Arden's memories there was no reason, except fear, that she wouldn't be able to do the same with sensing now.

"Alright, then that's exactly what I want you to do." He said, but nearly the second he finished there was a scream behind him as a boy—as _Yasuo_ —leapt up suddenly, batting his eyes wildly and looking around. As Dan moved to calm Sakura's friend down she frowned. She knew Yasuo was going to be part of the class, of course—he'd mentioned being tested positive for it at the beginning of the academy. But she'd barely registered his presence upon entering and every time their friend group had talked about chakra sensing recently the topic had focused solely on her, not him.

Another girl screamed—the only one who hadn't been knocked out of her trance when Yasuo had—and thrashed about in a similar manner, before coming about equally quickly.

Dan shot a look at Sakura as he moved to the other student.

Right.

Here's the thing.

Sakura wasn't… she wasn't very good at forcing herself to do anything. If she liked it, like weapons training, or if she was naturally good at it, like basically anything based solely on memorizing information and how to use it, then she could do it no problem. But anything else, particularly anything ninja based, she found nearly impossible to do without external motivation.

She suspected this was Arden's fault.

Just as she was only allowing in Arden's memories and information into her consciousness piecemeal, those same memories were also placing blinders on her—forcing her to ignore or refuse to do things which would have made their progenitor uncomfortable.

What's more, she was (according to everyone she knew) no longer at the age where her lack of motivation was acceptable, which meant she had to find a way to remove the blinders which simply _didn't work_ in her life (for all that Arden's own seemed fine with someone refusing to kill.)

So, she had to get over Arden's own distaste for feeling overwhelmed or in pain. If she couldn't force herself to do this now, when the stakes were comparatively low, then what use would she be in the field?

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

And then opened them.

And then closed them.

And then opened them.

And then closed them again. She _was_ going to do this.

The 'gate' that held her chakra sense back was less of a gate and more of a…block, a mental refusal to do anything that may lead to… well, to actually using it.

But, well, the third time's the charm, right?

She tried, and tried, and tried to force the block back. She _would not_ give up.

"Alright," A voice interrupted her. "That's enough for today. Back to class."

She forced her eyes open—after closing them for so long they were almost glued shut, and looked around to notice that, based on the slant of the sun's rays, over an hour had passed without her accomplishing a single thing.

That day after class the usual group met up at training ground forty. She immediately (both to provide him with the praise he deserved and, admittedly, to deflect attention from her own failures) told everyone else that Yasuo had been the first to open his chakra sense in the class.

"Nice!" Aiko said, grinning. "Manage to make it useful too?"

"Um, no." Yasuo said. "Sakura's right—it's very overwhelming. Still, I managed to figure out that my current, um, 'field' is only about 90 meters, and I can generally tell the amount of chakra, but not the kind."

"That's still good." Shin said, yawning. His older sister had just had her first child earlier that week, and against his own wishes he'd been promptly offered up by his parents as free childcare. "Considering, you know, most people can't sense anything."

Yasuo was still frowning. "I guess, but I can't sense the type or shape of the chakra, or if it's active or passive, or—"

"Forgive me if I'm mistaken," Sachiko said, "but can't your abilities grow with practice?"

"Yes." Yasuo admitted. "But I'm starting worse than most sensors."

"We're already starting worse," Sachiko snapped, "considering we're orphans. But we've managed to do well so far, and there's no reason that you won't be able to manage it for sensing too."

"She's right, you know." Juro said. "You two are already outpacing some of the weaker or more lazy clan students, and while that is in part because you've got help from us, you and Sakura could always work together—" He winced. "I mean, when she opens her sense."

"I've spent my entire childhood keeping that sense closed." Sakura sighed. "It's going to take a while to open it back up again."

"…Let's talk about something else." Yasuo said. The group shifted, waiting for a new topic to be introduced.

"Have—have any of you seen the Uchiha police?" Sakura asked.

"Of course." Aiko said. "They're all over the place."

"I believe," Bokuso said, "she was talking about their actions." Aiko, as well as Shin and Juro, looked confused, but the orphans shifted uneasily.

"I—when I went to pick something up from my mother's old Akimichi teammate I saw them roughing up a man with a young child because he vaguely fit the description of a thief."

"There aren't really… many rules," Sachiko started, "about how the Uchiha police have to behave. I mean, I've not really heard of them putting innocent people in prison, but then I don't know how we'd know if they were."

"They're allowed to act like that?" Sakura said.

"Yes." Yasuo said firmly. "They are. Look, there's a lot of people in a very small area—Konoha is one of the most populous places in the world, and that's not even considering the merchants that come and go every day. The Uchiha's job is to make sure everything is as orderly as possible to make sure that the entire nation doesn't burn down in a fiery ball of shit. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if a riot broke out? The security risk that would pose?"

Juro frowned. "So the police have similar free reign in other ninja and civilian cities?"

"Some are better, some are worse." Yasuo said. "Though Konohagakure is known for being particularly civilian friendly: most other ninja cities just have their policing done by the military sector of ninja, which doesn't tend to work well. And Capitals generally have a samurai contingent dedicated to policing. I actually don't know what the countryside does."

The group sat in silence for a while. It wasn't… the best, really, to know that so long as the Uchiha kept order they were allowed to do as they wished, but no one else seemed to have a better system. Still, it was uncomfortable to know that people got mishandled on a daily basis.

"Proposal One:" Bokosu suddenly said. "Each of us notes experiences we are not comfortable with over the course of the week, and every Friday accumulates those problems into one record. Proposal Two: we use said record to theorize possible solutions, continuing to revise said solutions as we age until such a time that we can enact desired changes."

"Seconded." Sakura said.

"A proposal has been made." Shin smirked. It wasn't as if they'd done this before, but each felt a rush of adrenaline at the mere idea of changing their world for the better—while the propaganda they were subjected to at the academy was intended to make them good shinobi it also made them desire to act, to do good. This was the first chance they'd gotten to act on that particular desire. "Any counters?"

Silence.

"Then I'll call for a vote. Ayes or nays. Ayes?"

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

Shin laughed, then finished unnecessarily. "Any nays?... Then it's unanimous."

A cheer erupted.

Life went on. It took nearly three weeks of daily effort for Sakura to open her sense, and another week to do so quickly and well. Her chakra sense turned out to be one of the most detailed in the class, explaining in part her particular difficulty; she could sense location, size, type, and whether or not it was being actively used. While she couldn't quite get shape, the only people who ever did so with any usefulness were the Hyuuga, and she wasn't about to get one of their eyes to act on that knowledge with.

As an apparent counterbalance to this her range was comparatively small—about 75 meters, compared to a class average of 100.

In terms of their "Reform List", as they'd termed their record of things they weren't happy with, it now listed dozens of items, ranging from the problematic police behavior to the tense relations between the Daimyo and Hokage to the generally poor quality of orphanages to… well, it was an increasingly long list. It would be a while, she knew, before they had any idea how to tackle the list, but it did help her with one issue directly: since she'd started to focus on all the problems she wished didn't exist it had become easier for her to force down Arden's residual refusal to pay attention to the bad.

Well, that wasn't fair. It was less refusal to pay attention, and more refusal to believe; the complete inability of Arden's memories and information to understand the new world Sakura was trying to apply them to.

But now that she was focusing on those issues it gave her more and more practice ignoring those twinges of discomfort, and her mental determination to fix whatever was on the "Reform List" solved the rest of the issue, at least for now.

(In other news, Might Duy was still very much alive and well—while he no longer visited the daycare as often he'd taken to constantly running around town, going through his exercises and "seeing the world!" as he did. Some people really didn't like the sheer volume of his antics, but Sakura and the rest of the seven just found him funny.)


	8. Academy: Year 4, Part 2

Sakura scrambled up the side of the building, panting slightly as she tried to catch her breath.

"You're late!" Shin said, grabbing her hand as she neared the top.

"Sorry, sorry! Kohana begged me to help her clean the gutters, and I couldn't exactly say no! What's happened so far?"

For the past year and a half or so, whenever they had nothing else planned and wanted a bit of easy entertainment, the chinmoku would as a group ascend to the roof and, while snacking on whatever Juro had brought that day, amuse themselves in the best way they knew how: people watching.

Or, more specifically, genin watching.

"Who's down there today?" Sakura asked, settling between the two boys while Juro fished out a sandwich for her.

"Don't recognize them, but I'd bet anything they're newbies—no cohesion at all." Shin said.

"That bad?"

"Take a look yourself."

Sakura did.

Immediately below the roof of the office building was Training Ground 16. Training ground 16 was a favored area for recent jounin-senseis because it was basically the closest grounds you could get to the center of the city without them being incredibly small or reserved for the academy. The ground itself wasn't bad either; plenty of open areas, a small pond, and enough randomly distributed trees that teaching tree hopping was a breeze.

Today it seemed a team of three boys and their sensei had it reserved, and the latter had apparently decided the opportunity was best spent teaching teamwork (a favored lesson for any jounin sensei.)

The jounin had decided to do this by blindfolding one, putting earmuffs on another, and muting the third, and then having them all run an obstacle course where any time any of them messed up the other two were sprayed with a water jutsu.

They were, of course, soaked.

"Interesting."

Shin snorted. "Useless. They're already flagging enough that it's clear they've been at it for at least two hours and still the blind one is just trying to rely on his own memories, the deaf one is shouting orders without paying any attention to his own surroundings, and the mute one has decided his own 'disability' means that there's absolutely no way he could help his teammates even if he wanted to, so he's not even bothering to try."

"And what would you propose, oh wise one?" Juro needled.

"Anything'd be better than continuing to try the same failed exercise!"

"Alright then, I'll go tell the sensei to start having his students hit each other with fresh carp." Sakura grinned.

"You know what I mean!" Shin whined. Then he smiled. "See, look? The sensei's calling a halt!"

"That can only be a good thing," Juro murmured, "what with him looking like he's ready to murder them and all."

"Oh." Shin disappointingly said a few seconds later. "They're just going off to do a D-rank. That's no fun."

"How can you tell?" Juro asked, squinting at the blurs below.

Sakura answered him, this time: "The Sensei's having them straighten themselves out. He wouldn't bother if they were just going to continue training."

Juro grunted. "Still training, just a different type."

"Fair enough." Sakura conceded. As chinmoku watched the group below them walk in the direction of the Administrative building, however, she couldn't help but wonder if D-ranks were really that useful in teamwork. They helped desensitize civilians to shinobi, yes, and they also taught fairly good if basic undercover skills, but...

Well, she could never quite tell how babysitting would lead to any group suddenly realizing that working together was far more useful than working apart, and that was assuming that they (like the team fading into the distance) hadn't already known that going in.

Regardless, Sakura decided, she had a few more years before she had to worry about enduring the boredom of painting fences. No use starting to think about it now.

A few weeks later found Sakura ducking into a courtroom, this time a few minutes ahead of schedule.

Konoha's courthouse was conveniently located down the block from the Administrative building. It was tall and built in the style of a Nara's meeting house, primarily because it had in fact been Konoha's first Nara meeting house before the clan had moved and the hidden city had asked to 'borrow' the building.

Most of the building was heavily restricted, with police stationed at just about every door inside and out. The upper floors held courtrooms for everything from Public Order cases— 'victimless' crimes, so to speak—to Personal Offense cases (like murder), Property Offense cases (like robbery), and Monetary Offense cases (like tax evasion.) The first floor, however, which held courtrooms for civil cases and some of the lesser criminal cases, was free for the public.

After she'd been thoroughly checked and it had been determined that she posed no risk Sakura had been allowed into courtroom three, which primarily dealt with monetary cases. Aiko, whose life goal was to become the Commerce Department Head, had decided to start attending a few of them a week to see what the trials were like and (after some not-so-subtle hints that she'd like company) Sakura had offered to come along.

Glancing around the courtroom she quickly found that Aiko had already arrived and positioned herself at the foremost bench. The courtroom was shaped in much the way Sakura had expected it to from Aiko's prior descriptions: the rectangular room was divided in half by a sort of pseudo-half-wall. The half nearer to the door had four rows of two benches each, divided in the middle to make a small corridor to the gate, while the huge judges' desk (meant to seat three with plenty of room for documents) splayed across the back wall. The massive desk was bracketed on either side by two smaller desks, presumably for the prosecution and defense, while the witness stand stood facing the judge between the two and, squeezed into the right corner behind the judges, a clerk was already hard at work preparing to create that day's record.

"Hey, Aiko." Sakura murmured as she slid onto the bench next to her.

"Hey." Aiko smiled back. She had a notebook and pen on her lap, ready to go, but she had yet to write anything down.

"So, this is the courtroom?"

"Unless something has gone seriously wrong." Aiko grinned.

"When's the first case supposed to start?"

The Utatane's eyes darted to the clock positioned on the left wall. "Five minutes, give or take."

"It's... more popular than I thought it'd be." Sakura said then. Again her eyes swiveled around the room, taking in not only the positioning of the furniture but also the surprising number of people settled on the benches behind and to the side of the two academy students.

"A lot of them are on trial or witnesses." Aiko explained. "They'll leave after their case is done. The rest are like me, to a point—interested in a career in the Commerce or Justice Department, that is. Now, shush."

In total Konoha had 13 departments—Commerce, which dealt with trade, Finance, which dealt with the money supply within Konoha, Justice, Infrastructure, which dealt with bridges and the like, Health, Education, Research, which researched, War & Security, which oversaw most ninja, Diplomacy, which dealt with international relations, Utilities, which dealt with water and the like, Services, which contained the fire department, and, of course, the Hokage Department, which ran it all.

Most of them, Sakura suspected, were just as boring as they sounded, but then just as she really wanted a career in Research Aiko was just as excited to work for Commerce, so beauty and the eye of the beholder and all that.

Still, it was a bit hard for her to believe that other people would also want to sit here for hours on end to listen to the droning of old men.

She glanced around again, trying to figure out who was there willingly, but none looked remotely as relaxed as Aiko and herself so she decided Aiko was inflating the 'normalcy' of her actions.

"All rise for the respectable Judge Nara, the respectable judge Mitokado, and the respectable judge Suzuki, " an Uchiha police officer abruptly announced. Sakura sat up a bit straighter, watching with as much interest as she could muster as the three judges entered the room.

The first case they oversaw dealt with a shopkeeper who had been found to have been using his brother's connections in the Land of Tea to get around the import tax both Konoha and the Daimyo had placed on food.

He was found guilty.

The second case focused on a man with a restaurant owner who was accused of not paying his workers, and lasted nearly three times as long as the first because the owner was adamant of his innocence (this despite, Sakura noticed, actually admitting no less than four times during his testimony that he had done exactly what he was accused of.)

Guilty.

The third—a case involving a food vendor accused of shortchanging foreigners unused to Konoha's money supply—also ended in a guilty plea, as did the fourth (tax evasion again), the fifth (more wage fraud) and the sixth (tax evasion, Sakura thought, but honestly she wasn't paying that much attention by then.)

"Are they always guilty?" Sakura whispered after the judges decided to leave the room for a quick recess.

"More or less, yes." Aiko said, not looking up from where she was scribbling something in her notebook. "Unlike the Daimyo's court there are no plea deals in Konoha, so every case must go to trial no matter what. All of the actually interesting cases happen in the upper floors, anyway."

"Then what's the use of being here?" She murmured, perhaps a bit more sardonically than intended.

Aiko shot her a look. "Experience. Now stop being rude."

Sakura flushed, but quieted. At the very least this experience gave her some idea of what to look forward to if _she_ ever decided Konoha' or the Land of Fire's import taxes were unreasonable.

Or, at least, what to look forward to if she was as stupid as the first man to be brought up immediately after the recess ended, who argued that he should not be punished because "getting caught was punishment enough—I wasn't even able to make my poker tournament yesterday because I had to prepare for this, your honors! Please give this simple man some sympathy."

"Guilty." Judge Mitokado said without batting an eye. The other two nodded. "Standard punishment." That meant, if Sakura remembered correctly, that the man had to pay double what the tax would have been to both Konoha and the Daimyo unless the latter wanted to challenge and try him in their own courts.

She sighed as the next defendant (a woman accused of fudging her work hours) came to the front, clearly in tears and ready to plead guilty. At least the last one had been somewhat interesting.

She glanced at the clock and resisted the urge to sigh again.

This was how she was spending her Saturday, and the torture wasn't even half over.

Of all the various aspects of the Academy's year four, the one Sakura liked the least was kunoichi lessons.

That was not to say they were hard, of course, just that they were... well...

"—by age, rather than legal definition. That means that even if you become a genin and therefore an adult at, say, ten, you will not begin training for seduction-based missions until you are at least fifteen, and even then only if you chose to.

Nonetheless it is important for all of you to have a basis—" 

Sakura, as well as everyone else in the course, had been bright red since about five minutes into class.

She still remembered last year when Fujio had had his own shinobi-specific courses teach him about the same things she was learning now, and she remembered how he had been unable to look anyone in the eye for nearly a week and literally ran in the other direction when Yuna Yamanaka, a sixteen year old clan member who was well known for her beauty, had approached him to ask about whether he'd seen her little brother. At the time Sakura had laughed and teased him about his reactions.

Now she felt mildly apologetic.

"—erogenous zones include, of course, the most obvious parts of the anatomy, such as breasts, but they also include other areas such as the neck and, for many men and women, ears. Which erogenous zone is most effective, of course, depends largely on both the person involved and the desired outcome, but—"

She was six, okay? Six! Her birthday wasn't even for another month and she had to learn about _this?_ Sakura knew for a fact (because of some very unpleasant memory-fishing a couple months ago) that Arden hadn't even begun to learn about anything like _this_ until she was ten (or at least ten-ish—the memory wasn't very clear), so why did she have to know about it now?!

"Fetishes are also an important part of—"

Sakura's face, if possible, turned even redder. In front of her her clanmate Inohina looked ready to feint, and the face of one of the civilian-born student's (also named Sakura, because of course both their parents (as well as the parents of two others in the class) chose the most popular girl's name in Konoha) had turned an odd green-ish color and seemed in no rush to turn back.

 _Fifteen more minutes... fifteen more minutes..._

For all that her life was now built around chakra and fighting and learning and training, Sakura still tried to make time for what was important in life.

In other words she and Kohana still had playdates.

Kohana had taken to collecting carved animal statues a few years prior, so they mostly played with those, creating their own personal "hidden village" of animals to look after.

It was kind of odd, Sakura new, that she, at nearly seven (it was now only a week before her birthday) was simultaneously spending her days learning how to be a skilled killer and some of her evenings lost in her and Kohana's imagination.

Arden, she knew, wouldn't have been comfortable with the dichotomy.

No one else around her seemed to care.

She'd asked her father once, on the rare occasion he was home, and he'd explained that so long as one was capable of doing their job, and doing it well, no one quite cared what else they did;

"And anyway, my little blossom, it's not as if playing is unusual for year fours—I bet there's not a single person in your class who hasn't 'played ninja' sometime in the last month!" (Which had honestly been a fairly accurate statement.)

Still, the easy acceptance of such disparate actions never seemed quite right in Sakura's head.

Not, of course, that that would stop her from playing with Kohana—her sister had just gotten a new wooden duck, after all, and it would be a shame to not welcome the newest member of the hidden village.

(Sakura smiled as she spoke in the high pitched voice they'd given the frog statue, and tried not to think of Arden's memories of a cartoonish version of Orochimaru trying to kill children in a forest. That was for later, she forced herself to remember, and this was now.)


	9. Academy: Year 4, Part 3

The night of her seventh birthday Sakura was kidnapped.

By her brother.

"Ren?" She whispered once he removed the gag he'd put on her.

"Hey Sakura."

"What's going on?"

"You're seven." He said. "It's time for you to start learning the methods of the Yamanaka."

"I thought techniques weren't taught until you reached genin?" She asked. She looked around—the room was fairly plain, with only two chairs and a table, and there were no windows.

"Techniques, sure, but that's not what we're talking about." Ren said. "We're talking about methods. Really, you should have learned about this years ago, but Kaa-san and Tou-san wanted to wait until the traditional age to start you."

"Ren, I have no idea what is going on."

"And that's the problem. At your age you should be much better at observing and drawing conclusions. Instead you prefer if people spell things out for you, and that cannot stand." He said. He stood. "Get comfortable, sis, you're not leaving for a good long while."

"School?" She murmured.

"Your teachers are aware you'll be missing the rest of Year Four. You'll start Year Five with everyone else—assuming you work fast enough."

Sakura grimaced. It was only May; if she was being kept here until the start of a new school year…

Ren, who had walked out of the room as Sakura began preparing herself for exactly how long she'd stay in the room, came back with a pot, a tea making kit, and some leaves.

"First: poison resistance. This'll be the easiest part." He said. He set up the kettle and began preparing one of the plants to brew. "I figure we'll get through about four small doses before you get too sick to continue on. Then, depending on how you feel tomorrow, we'll see about another dose or two."

They waited, silently, for the tea to be ready. Ren pouted, Sakura took a gulp.

And promptly spat it out. "What is this?"

"No use telling you now—you'll be too sick to bother to remember. We'll go over the poisons and your symptoms—as well as others'—when it's clear you can concentrate even while affected. Now, take another drink and swallow."

Sakura did so, forcing it down her throat quickly enough that its rancid taste didn't force her to spit again.

It took less than five minutes for her to begin sweating, dry heaving onto the floor and trembling all over. Ren was preparing a new plant for consumption. This one, at least, she thought she recognized, though her eyes refused to concentrate on anything in her state. "What… what's…."

"Don't worry." Her brother said soothingly. "It's just the antidote. Well, no, that's a lie. What I gave you doesn't have an antidote. This is just a little something to make you puke so that it doesn't permanently damage your body."

It took well over two months to completely go through his set of plants, to finish puking, and fainting, and retching, and seizing, and experiencing every other side effect his collection had to offer.

By the second week, however, she was expected to work on other things while the plants poisoned her body.

Ren let her ease into it by going over the poisons themselves first—how to make them more or less potent, how to obtain their ingredients (because while some were straightforward, others were anything but), how to hide their taste, how to ignore some of their side effects by working your chakra against them, and how to treat them. While learning about the side effects before drinking, touching, or breathing the poison made it more difficult, Ren was right—compared to what came later, it was a breeze.

Unfortunately, that time all too quickly came to an end.

"Alright, I'm going to give you a slip of paper with a word." He'd said. "No matter what, you may not tell me that word." 

He waited, watching as she memorized the word in front of her, before taking the slip of paper back and burning it with a quick jutsu. While Sakura's eyes were still on the flame, though, his fist jabbed straight at her nose. She flinched, screwing her eyes shut, but the expected blow didn't come and instead she opened her eyes to her brother ranting.

"No! Do you not see how dangerous your flinch was? You could have ducked, dodged, kept better watch of your surroundings... don't worry, though: by the time I'm done you—will—be—able—to—control—ALL—your—reactions."

With each pause a fist jabbed forwards, some hitting her, some not.

That was how her "interrogation practice" started.

There was a misconception among Sakura's classmates that torture was all about learning how to put up with physical abuse. And while the start of her torture certainly leaned that way, that certainly wasn't all of it.

"It's okay, it's okay." Ren had said on her third attempt, after she'd finally successfully managed to deal with what he threw at her as well as the poisons without saying the word. "It's over, it's over. You can tell me now."

Exhausted, and having only come to from unconsciousness, she hadn't even thought, just said it as easily as breathing: "snake." She hadn't made that mistake again. When Ren told her never to tell him the word, he meant it.

She was improving, though, over time—she never made the same mistake twice, and she usually anticipated Ren's tricks before he could do them.

That didn't make it any easier.

She'd just finished her poison resistance training—some of it would have to be repeated every year, and new ones would be added, but at least she had something to defend against most common ones. She'd also finished memorizing all of them, and she'd started paying attention during her torture sessions more: while she'd already learned about many methods in her regular Yamanaka lessons, it was one thing to know them in the abstract and quite another to experience them in person. Not only that, but often only one aspect of the torture would have been explained—the academy, for instance, could have spent a day discussing an important victory in the latest war, and how it had been in part possible because of information retrieved by T&I. Sakura would then go home and learn about how it was actually her great-great-whatever that had interrogated the information out of the suspect, and how they had gone about it. In that case she would only learn how to use the technique, not defend against it. Now Ren made sure she knew both. By now she felt fairly confident on her ability to withstand and use what she had been taught, as well as how to tell if the information she was given was fake and whether a mind game was working.

Ren had, as a reward, given her the day off, so she sat curled in the corner, deeply in thought.

She didn't hate her older brother. She knew Arden would have, that much was clear, but she… didn't.

Arden grew up in a world where child soldiers were the subject of global outrage, where wars were uncommon and spies far more frequent in stories than real life. Arden grew up knowing, _knowing_ , that everything and everyone she knew would be alright tomorrow.

Sakura did not grow up in that world. So in her world it was okay that her brother beat his seven year old sister to the point that she didn't wake up for four days, because it was better if it were him than an enemy. Sakura grew up in a world where making yourself sick by ingesting, inhaling, or touching things you knew would hurt you made sense because that meant next time they'd hurt less.

So Sakura didn't hate her brother. She didn't particularly like him at the moment either, but she felt rather entitled to that.

Ren opened the door, carrying a bowl of simple unflavored rice and some ginger tea.

"Lunch!" He said, grinning. Sakura made a face at him, but sat up anyway.

"How much longer?" She asked.

He grinned. "Sooner than you think. You're putting up with everything pretty well, honestly, even if your natural constitution isn't that great."

"What's left?"

"A bit more interrogation practice, unfortunately." He said. "But after that we're going to focus entirely on perception—getting you better at recognizing facial expressions quicker, what they mean in context, interpreting word choice, et cetera."

"Okay." Sakura sighed.

True to his word, Ren let her out one week before the next semester—Sakura's fifth year—was to begin.

The Training Ground Forty group was thrilled to see her.

"You were gone so long!" Sachiko whined. "The rest of Chinmoku said not to worry, it was just something the Yamanaka did at seven, but still!"

"Welcome back." Aiko smiled.

"Was your training successful?" Bokuso asked.

"Yep!" She said.

"I am glad. Aburame complete their own full time training at five."

"This is normal?" Yasuo asked.

"Most clans do it." Shin said. "Nara don't, not officially, but generally winter break is used for that purpose every year. Akimichi do too, in the break between passing the genin exam and beginning training. Aiko, when do the Utatane?"

"Seven, like Yamanaka." Aiko said. "So I did mine last year, but we're supposed to say we're sick—remember November?"

The group nodded. She'd disappeared for a little over two weeks then came back claiming the flu, despite absolutely no residual symptoms.

"Yeah, so that's the main one. We also have additional training beginning the evening of the first Friday of every month."

"What's the difference between that training and the regular training you all do?" Yasuo asked.

"This is more… intensive." Juro grunted.

"We are trained," Bokuso explained, "generally speaking, in how to excel in the skills our clans are known for—such as research in mine—though it is also when things that require recovery time are done. My clan injects venom, for instance, to develop a resistance."

"And mine focuses on poison." Sakura said.

Sachiko and Yasuo made a face. "Do we have to do that?" She asked.

"Why weren't we given a chance to do that?" He asked.

Aiko waved away their concerns. "You will! It's usually done when you're a chunin, anyway. It's just that the clans generally want to do it themselves, because, you know, family."

Sakura had grown bored of the conversation. "What did you all do while I was gone?" She asked.

Juro grinned, then started telling her about having been given a volunteer position at the hospital—he wasn't doing anything medical, mostly just being everyone's gopher, but at least he was there. Then Shin went, telling her about how one of his second cousin's uncles had offered to help him get one of his short stories published under a pseudonym—but only after he'd managed to get his genjutsu up to a point where he could play out a scene from his stories.

Aiko had decided to go with her family tradition and aim for either the Hokage or Justice Department, and had begun trying to make inroads for that, while Sachiko had successfully completely gotten rid of her stutter even while under the influence of weak genjutsu (her stutter had always been worse while she was afraid, but ample practice had put a stop to that.) Bokuso was acting as a gopher to his grandmother who was inventing food to rapidly grow hive populations, and Yasuo was experimenting with any weaponry he could get his hands on, trying to figure out what worked best for him—currently he was most drawn to anything close combat.

All of them had continued working on their "Reform List."

"Oh!" Aiko said as they wrapped up their explanations. "And I'm joining your class—they reshuffled the classes again so that there's now two classes of about fifty, and I'm in yours but now Sachiko and Bokuso aren't."

Sakura frowned. "Why did they reshuffle all the classes?" She asked.

"Dunno." Juro said. "It's not like they explained it."

"Perhaps," said Bokuso, "They are trying to start pairing us up with whomever they expect to be in our genin team, or at least putting us in the same class. I am, for instance, aiming for T&I and have been transferred into a class with Ichiro Utatane and Nio Yamanaka, both of which are similarly inclined and yet do not have any genin partners already." 

"I agree." Aiko said. "I don't know about Sachiko, because she's an orphan, but I already know I'll be paired with one of the Uchiha and the Sarutobi with the weird cowlick. All three of us are aiming for administration and politics, so it makes sense."

"Shin, Juro, and I aren't aiming for the same places." Sakura said.

"Sure, but you're also Ino-Shika-Cho. Everyone knows you work well together." Yasuo said. "I bet for other teams they use chunin goals as a uniting similarity."

"And anyway," Aiko added, "Juro wants to go into medical, and they never put more than one medical on the team."

Sakura smiled. "You know, we actually have a pretty good mix of chunin goals among us, and they never stopped us from getting along. I mean, Yasuo's going to be a frontline fighter, I want to be a researcher, Shin's interested in Sabotage or T&I and Juro's already working at medical, you're looking to start as an academy instructor or courtroom clerk, and Bokuso's T&I. Sachiko—"

"Cryptology."

"—which means the only main career we're missing is tracking, I think."

"Damn we're awesome." Yasuo grinned.

"Well, _we_ are." Aiko said primly. "Everyone choses frontline, so that just makes you ordinary."

"Hey!" He snapped. "Like every Utatane doesn't chose academy instructor!"

Sachiko rolled her eyes. "None of us chose our goals because someone else expected us to." She said. "That's what matters."

Bokuso held a two inch beetle which had appeared from nowhere up to his eye. "And anyway, we're still pretty young. We've got forever to decide." The beetle leapt up and flew away and Bokuso immediately began chasing after it, knocking the group out of the circle they were sitting in as he did so. "Come back!" He shouted. "I wasn't finished studying you!"

"You really think we'll have a while to decide?" Sakura asked Shin.

"Sure." He said. "Why not?"


	10. Academy: Year 5, Part 1

The day before Sakura's fifth year she sat in the middle of her family's training ground, eyes closed and spine tense as she opened her sensing gates.

During her confinement under Ren's watch, Sakura had (both as part of the torture and as part of the "breaks") been both forced and instructed on how to open her senses. By the time she left doing so was something she could finally accomplish consciously, if not comfortably. Now, though, Sakura was trying to actually use the sense. It was one thing to be capable of receiving the input; it was quite another to understand how to interpret it.

Unfortunately, just as she began to feel for the chakra paper she'd had Himari hide for her, the shuddering of a bush and a flare of chakra coming straight at her caught her attention. She glanced to the right just in time to see the Yamanaka heir, Inoichi, spring over the bushes that outlined her training ground. He was red faced and breathing heavily, but the second he landed in a textbook roll he was back on his feet, dashing to the other side of the dirt floor.

Sakura stuck out her leg.

The four year old tripped.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" Inoichi whispered, scrambling to stand. "I'm doing absolutely nothing."

"It looks like you're running away." Sakura pointed out. "And, generally speaking, four year-olds aren't the best at looking like they're doing anything other than what they're actually doing."

"Well, maybe I'm the exception, did you think of that?" He muttered. He glanced around, relieved when he saw no one but Sakura nearby. "Okay, fine. I might be running away."

"Why?"

"You're in the academy, right?" He asked. He flopped onto the ground, finally allowing his lungs to fill with air.

"Fifth year." Sakura examined the boy. She knew that Inoichi, like Sakura herself, had started the academy at three years old. It had, after all, been big news in the Ino-Shika-Cho groups: the three year old heir of the Yamanaka, two (and a half!) year old heir of the Nara, and four (and a half!) year old heir of the Akimichi all starting the academy had called for a city-wide party, in fact (though in terms of Konoha at large that may have been mostly because of the free samples most Akimichi restaurants had offered for the occasion.)

"Right, okay. So, tomorrow I'm about to start the second half of my second year." Inoichi said. "And it's… it's…" He sat up abruptly, turning to stare at Sakura with a look of pure misery on his face. "It's so boring!" He flopped back down. "I don't know how I can take a week more, much less four and a half years of this!"

Sakura smirked. "It does get better, you know."

"Not in the middle of the year it doesn't." Inoichi said. "Come on, you started at the same age I did! You must know how dreadful it is!"

Sakura did. "You could… distract yourself." She said.

"Oh, like Choza does with his recipe creations or Shikaku with his solo games of shogi?" Inoichi asked. "Yeah, I've tried that. Boring!" He turned and looked at her again. "I want to be a real ninja, a frontline fighter that everyone knows to respect. Instead I'm either respected because of my name or scorned because of my age. It sucks."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I should've known you'd be whiny."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!"

"You've had everything handed to you, Inoichi." She said. "I mean, you still have to try, but your life—and mine, too, by the way—is really, really easy compared to others. You know those civilians in your class? The reason you're still stuck on things you already know?"

"Yeah." Inoichi groaned. "Shikaku's trying to get the stupider ones to quit."

…okay. Sure. "Well, don't you think it'd be better if you tried to help them succeed?" That was a pretty good side-eye. "It'd be harder than convincing them to fail, for one," she pointed out, "and it would gain their respect, which is apparently your goal anyway."

"I… hadn't thought of that."

"What had you thought of?"

"Not much." Both students' heads turned as they heard shouting from the direction of the main house. "I should get back. Mom'll kill me if I don't. And thanks for the tip! I'm sure I would've thought of it soon anyway, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't feel proud of helping me!"

Sakura stared after him as the Yamanaka heir leapt over the bushes once more.

That was going to be her leader for what was likely going to be a significant portion of her life.

Well, he's only four, Sakura reasoned to herself, give him time.

The first day of fifth year began with testing.

"Physical tests in the morning—cardio first, then endurance, then everything else. We'll do the paper tests after lunch, and the chakra last." Sensei Utatane led the group—notably diminished since the last time Sakura had been a part of it—outside and set them to running.

By noon Sakura was exhausted, and her body was a limp noodle. Juro wasn't doing much better, and Shin had curled up and fallen asleep the second Sensei called an end to the morning's tests.

"How'd we do?" Sakura asked. She'd like to have said she paid attention, particularly given Ren's emphasis on that during her family training, but…

Well, to be perfectly honest, at some points there were so many black spots dancing in her vision that she found it hard to see.

Juro grunted, pulling out the bentos his uncle had packed them. "Don't really… um, remember. Wake Shin up and ask him."

Sakura did so, pointing to the food when it looked like Shin was going to kill her for interrupting his sleep.

"That… was the hardest we've ever been worked." He muttered. "The falling chairs from the new group of first years didn't help either." Most of the kids had been far enough along the track not to get hit when they came down, but one of the teachers threw far and almost all the front runners had had to dive out of the way of the flying object.

"That," Sakura said, taking a big bite out of her own lunch, "is not what I asked."

"We're all definitely behind the taijutsu focused students in respiratory endurance. Juro's ahead of most of them in strength, vitality, and power, and both Juro and I are ahead in stamina. We're all top of class or near that in flexibility, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy, and speed. Honestly, given our respective future career choices, we're doing pretty damn well."

"Really?" Sakura asked. She'd thought they were doing worse.

"Yeah, but keep in mind that all the things we are best at are considered almost secondary to those that we were worse at. Except Juro—he really is doing good."

Sakura whimpered as she stretched out her legs. "I want to go to bed, not keep on going through tests." She said.

Juro had already finished his meal and fallen asleep, so her whining was directed solely at the other member of chinmoku.

"I agree, but what can you do?" Shin said, stretching out his own legs. "Look on the bright side—at least this is a sign that this year will be more interesting."

"Great." Sakura muttered under her breath. "Let's see if heir Inoichi is willing to trade."

Two weeks later found half of the class balanced on poles on the training ground behind the school, trying not to fall while the other half threw kunai and shuriken at them.

Sakura had been unlucky enough to be positioned between two recent entries to the academy, neither of whom had apparently balanced on anything before in their life and both of whom saw absolutely no problem using her as a crutch, despite her relatively smaller demeanor (she may have been the youngest in the class, but she was a bit tall for her age too, so it mostly balanced out.

The school year had, as promised, started out going hard and never really stopped. As predicted, though, few students dropped out—they were reluctant to do so when they were only two years away from graduation, and when nearly everything they were being taught was now relevant for a future ninja life.

That meant there were about seventy children left and despite the larger than usual year due to the recent introductions Sakura guessed that graduation would go how it usually did—the bottom 10-20% or so would have to repeat the final year, the next lowest 10-20% would be immediately shafted to the genin corps, while the remaining students would be placed on a genin team and about a third of those teams would last longer than a week.

Mind you, that whole ratio was a bit misleading—after all, it wasn't as if almost all of the clan kids weren't _currently_ good enough to make it onto a team, so it was a bit deceptive to say only 20% or so became full genin. More accurately, a number of the best students would disappear sometime in their fifth or sixth (two already had), and reappear years later as full chunin at minimum. Most of them, she knew, were trained as infiltrators and the like. She was sure that there were other jobs too, but considering how many siblings she'd had who were clearly ready for infiltration suddenly 'quit' it was the cause she was most aware of.

Regardless, that little fact, combined with apprenticeships (which began right after the academy) meant that the success rate was much higher than it initially seemed. Apprenticeships in particular were common among students whose career tracks were already set and didn't stress working in groups—in fact, all of chinmoku would likely have qualified if it weren't for their clan names acting as a major push to keep teamed up and in the field. All that meant that while those who passed _would_ be immediately shunted off into teams for testing, many were literally set up to fail; their only purpose being to shove in as much 'team' dynamics in possible in the short time they did stay together.

The reason Sakura was thinking of this while balancing on a pole that was less than three centimeters thick and bending over to avoid not one but two kunai flying straight at her head while attempting to keep her pole from tipping over in reaction for her neighbor collapsing?

That would be her other neighbor.

Takashi Saito.

Takashi Saito, the same boy who had been kicked out of school on the first day of class for being a stuck up prick, was now balancing right next to her and sneering at all the students as he did (which was really not helping with the quantity of weapons thrown in either of their directions, actually, so _could he please stop?)_

He had transferred into their class for fifth year, but according to Akio he'd been in the other class since the Hokage had let students enter late. And even before then he'd been in one of the academy outposts—the one nearest Suna, apparently—with private tutors to help him improve in his off hours.

He was scoring in about the 60th percentile of the class.

Takashi Saito had, in other words, absolutely no natural skill.

But he was _very_ well tutored, and had an ego to go with that. (Sakura desperately hoped that that wasn't how every non-clan student saw her.)

"Give—give up yet?" He gasped, leaning out of the way of another shuriken. It wasn't particularly clear who he was talking to, but Sakura decided to reply anyway.

"I figure I'll give in about when I can't breathe." She was breathing heavily, yes, but nowhere near his own pants.

"Puny girl," He forced out, "you know females never do well as ninjas anyway. Well, as _most_ types of ninja. Is that really what you want for yourself?"

What was it with bullies and referencing _that_? It wasn't as if those who did it even had a bad reputation!... Well, in ninja circles anyway. Sakura was given to understand it was quite a bit different to civilians, but then it was not as if they could tell one specialist from another to discriminate against anyway.

"Feeling cocky?" She asked instead of answering his question.

"What?"

She grinned, bent out of the way of an incoming projectile, then jerked her leg out—straight at Takashi.

He fell immediately, screaming as he hit the dirt. Unfortunately her actions had caught her precious balance, and while him being down lessened the onslaught it didn't stop her from falling less than a minute later—third place. Not bad, but then she'd always been good at balance.

"Watch your back." Takashi growled into her ear as the group began trooping back to their second floor classrooms. "Accidents happen, you know."

As much as she hated doing it, Sakura took the threat seriously. The work of a ninja did not require mental stability to accomplish, and therefore one could never be quite certain that someone purportedly on your side wouldn't stab you in the back for money or revenge or just because they liked the feeling.

After class the Forty Group—now quite well known for the training ground that served as their usual haunt—met up to study for an exam to be held the next day.

Unfortunately, their group had shrunk in the last few weeks. While Sachiko hadn't officially dropped out yet, she now couldn't be seen outside of class and was dropping increasingly blatant hints that she would be going into infiltration by the next month. Aiko wasn't there, either, but that wasn't unusual—she'd somehow convinced Sensei Utatane (not theirs, but the one that taught Year Twos) to let her apprentice under him, so she was busy grading for about the first hour after Academy.

Bokuso, Yasuo, and the entire chinmoku team were there, though, so there was that.

"Can someone help me with my balance?" Yasuo asked as they opened the chain link fence that enclosed the training ground. "I did not last _nearly_ long enough today."

"Sure." Sakura said. "Give me a minute for a snack and then we can spar on top of the fence—that should provide enough of a challenge." The orphan looked dubiously at the thin metal bars that formed the chain link's backbone, but didn't argue.

"I'm not even going to try for balance." Juro said. "I know I can balance with two feet on the ground, and that's enough."

Shin grinned. "Not going to be the first Akimichi ballerina?"

"No, probably not." Juro smiled back.

"How about a three way spar for those of us who prefer to remain grounded?" Bokuso offered, and the agenda was set. The only change was when Akio came, and that was only to pit her against Shin so that Juro and Bokuso could go all out against each other.

By the time that the children usually began to prepare to leave all of their clothes were soaked through with sweat and more than a few of them sported novel bruises, but all felt the day had been a productive one.

Days like this Sakura liked.

Sakura's days tended to follow the same general pattern from week to week. Each morning would begin with stretches and light exercise, followed by breakfast with the family, followed by taijutsu lessons at the academy (unless it was a Friday, in which case there'd be some sort of odd test to get through), followed by classroom lessons, then lunch and her two electives, then kunoichi lessons for her and shinobi lessons for the rest of chinmoku (they were infiltration lessons, really. Sakura didn't know why they weren't just called that.) After academy she'd go to training ground forty and practice there for a while before rushing home to spend time with her family, eat dinner, and work on her own projects.

Then she'd sleep.

On this particular April day she had just finished lunch and was on her way to her first elective, fuinjutsu. Shin and Juro had already split off to go to diplomacy and basic medical training, which meant she was walking alone—out of Forty Group, only Sachiko and herself were taking the course and Sachiko had dropped out the week before, with the 10th highest scorer in the class citing "difficulty of the coursework" as her reason.

Sakura's career path meant she was staying until the end of academy, however, so she kept walking.

Most academy classrooms sat directly on top of one another. Entry to the building showed you two classrooms on either side and a staircase at the far end. The staircase would twist around every half of a floor, and every floor would open up to another four classrooms, all the way to the top of the building where the first years started.

This left little room for elective courses, however, so most of those were found within the actual administrative part of the building, a tall structure directly connected to the academy which held the headquarters for most of Konoha's shinobi departments, as well as general administration besides.

Sakura entered the classroom—located past the offices of the Infrastructure and Land Use Departments for reasons she could not begin to fathom—and smiled at the codgy old special jounin who acted as the class's teacher.

"Hello, Sensei Hyuuga." She said.

He growled.

She sat.

The next boy—the Sarutobi with the cowlick who Aiko thought would be her genin partner (Eiji, if you wanted his actual name)—entered. "Hello, Sensei Hyuuga."

Growl.

The process repeated itself until the classroom was full.

It was, Sakura supposed, a rather odd sort of rebellion. Sensei Hyuuga clearly, vehemently, fervently disliked children, and yet (for one reason or another—Sakura guessed a personal vendetta) was forced to teach them.

It never went _well_ , per se, but the man did instruct them sufficiently enough that the fifth years had already begun practicing making heating tags. Heating tags, simple creations meant to make it possible to cook without fire, were the first of three tags they were expected to know by the end of sixth year, in addition to exploding tags and (most difficult of all) simple storage seals.

Sakura was doing relatively well, but it was always strained her understanding of reality to acknowledge that a few (very, very carefully drawn) scribbles on a page and a small burst of chakra could lead to what basically amounted to an oven, or a bomb, or a paper-thin backpack.

At least this class was closed to those that entered after third year—the walls were literally covered in marks of insufficiently controlled burns and explosions, and that was with years of practice first.

Sensei Hyuuga stood. "Today... against my better judgement... you may begin injecting chakra into your seals. I remind you that if you die I will in no way be punished." He sat.

Sakura grinned.

Time to add to the marks on the walls.

She had only just added the final touches to her seal when a sudden blue light from Eiji Sarutobi's table nearly blinded her. She closed her eyes, trying to get rid of the spots, then opened the one which hadn't been shocked to see what had happed.

"Shit." The boy said.

"I think you will find, Sarutobi, that a significantly smaller quantity of chakra will be more than sufficient to achieve your aims. Unless, of course, your hope was to blind not only yourself but also your classmates and teacher?"

"Of—Of course not, Sensei Hyuuga." Sarutobi said. "I will be more careful in the future."

Sakura barely paid attention to their exchange, far more caught up in the dancing blue light that Sarutobi's paper gave off.

"Why is it blue?" She asked.

Sensei, clearly annoyed at having to continue to talk, nonetheless replied: "It is blue because of the sheer quantity of heat he has employed. See—already the paper it is built on is beginning to burn up, and it was specially treated not to do so. At most one should expect mild red light to emanate from their papers—preferably no light should be emitted at all."

True to his word, by the time he had finished speaking Sarutobi's paper had already destroyed itself and the stunning (and admittedly very, very hot) blue light had vanished.

Sarutobi himself had already begun working on a new paper.

Sakura turned back to her own and pushed a fairly large quantity of her own chakra into it. It warmed fast enough that she had to yank her hand back (she'd need to add some more lines to delay the reaction) but barely glowed red, and quickly faded to no light at all and plenty of heat still being pumped out.

A success, then. That was... good, she supposed.

Another flash of a blue light, and a curse to go with it, came from Sarutobi's seat.

Sakura decided to see if she could manage that.

By the time she'd managed to draw out her new heat tag Sarutobi had already turned his third into a glowing blue light (though this one, to be fair, was a different tint than those previous and seemed to last a few seconds longer too.) Hers, with her pumping everything that she could in one go into it, turned orange for about half a second.

Hmm...

Well, the standard tag she'd been working on for the past two years did what it was supposed to, but she didn't really want it to. She wanted _blue._

She worked with the symbols of the heat tag, adding a few to delay the reaction and getting rid of some of the dampeners. Sarutobi's light went off again—nearly white, this time, but still far too hot. Sakura glanced through her notes from the preceding classes, trying to find a symbol or two to act as an amplifier. Nearly everyone in the class had gotten theirs to work, now, more or less, but most were still working on the minutia of how they'd wanted the tag to turn out. Sakura reworked her seal once more, Sarutobi's came out almost orange, and she tried again.

White. And it lasted nearly three seconds before winking out, leaving its damaged seal behind.

An improvement, but still not what she wanted.

.

After kunoichi lessons had finally finished Sakura came stumbling out of the academy building towards the awaiting Juro and Shin.

"What the hell happened to you?!" Shin demanded.

She beamed. "Did you know fire glows blue if it's hot enough?"

Shin frowned. "You've begun actually using tags in Fuinjutsu class, haven't you?" She grinned.

Juro frowned. "You made your paper glow blue on purpose, didn't you?" Her grin widened.

"Blue!" She said. "Stupid Sarutobi did that every time, but I got it to be blue by the end of class!"

"I... find it hard to believe that's what Sensei Hyuuga was aiming for." Shin said.

"Sensei Hyuuga's not fun." Sakura retorted. "Blue is fun."

It was also, as she'd already figured out and she'd continue to get reminders of for the rest of the week, chakra-exhaustion inducing, but that didn't really feel as important as the blinding blue flare she'd managed to force out just three minutes before the class was due to end.

Fifth year, Sakura decided resolutely, was a blast.


	11. Academy: Year 5, Part 2

Sakura eyed Ryota Shimura as she walked silently behind him.

It was the start of the June training exercise, a three week excursion into the forest with minimal supplies and two partners (not the ones you would end up as genin with, of course. That would make it too easy.) There would be other challenges too, she knew: surprise trials that would test every skill they could possibly had.

Worse, they were meant to fail.

That was kind of the point of it, really: show the ten(ish) year-olds that they were not actually ready to be shinobi, regardless of whether or not one could technically take the test a year early (or, in terms of them specifically, in one month.) This 'excursion' or 'test' or 'training exercise' or whatever it was called was not actually meant to teach them a hell of a lot; it was just supposed to make them miserable enough that they'd stay in the academy for one year more than many of them really had to.

(Never mind that most clans wouldn't allow their child to graduate earlier unless circumstances (like infiltration) required it, likely the result of one treaty or another made long ago. No, everyone had to learn this lesson, regardless of how much they actually needed it.)

So, of course, Sakura had been stuck with Shimura and Kenshin Sarutobi, who (while he had certainly never been a crony of Shimura's by any definition) felt indebted to the entire Shimura clan for being the catalyst that allowed the Hidden Village to survive, and therefore gave the other boy, in Sakura's opinion, far too much leeway for his behavior.

Not, she supposed, that she could deny the Shimura clan's historical significance. Back when Konoha was simply some hastily built together tents in the general vicinity of each other and everyone, including the participants, were absolutely sure that this attempt at a peaceful ninja village was doomed from the start, it had been the Shimura clan joining that finally convinced others—and most importantly the Daimyo—that there might be something to this whole Hidden Village business.

It wasn't as if the other clans didn't participate in making it possible, of course. After all, the Yamanaka were one of the first to sign on as well. But unlike the Yamanaka, and most of the other original members, the Shimura had no kekkei genkai. Not only that, but unlike what few other Konoha clans didn't have any bloodline to speak of, the Shimura were also _huge_.

In other words, they were able to not only survive but prosper without the help of stupidly superior genetic hacks, and they didn't need the village in any way, shape, or form to persist. There was nothing in it for them, really, besides the ideal, and yet they'd joined anyway and packed up their entire clan and moved them miles and miles and miles to join what was then considered a suicide attempt at ninjas getting along.

Once they'd done that, requests to join (from shinobi and civilian alike) had begun flooding in, and the Daimyo had started treating Konohagakure as something more than a sideshow attraction, nice to look at but utterly worthless, and instead begun expending significant time and resources into seeing if the village actually could last.

Of course, Ryota specifically hadn't even been alive yet, but that mattered little in a culture such as theirs. Family mattered, and the Shimura had a good one.

Of course, so too did the Sarutobi considering they were related to the current Hokage and the Yamanaka given the village's reliance on them in much of the "paper-ninja" aspect of running a village (as well as some of the darker aspects, though that side was rarely talked about publicly), but somehow it was always the Shimura which commanded the most respect of the civilians and the original clans.

So, because there was no justice in the world, when the three-student cells were created for the excursion, it had been Shimura who was chosen as leader.

"We'll stop here." Shimura said, coming to a still after nearly two hours of alternating running and evasive action to deter any team which may have been following them. "There's a river nearby and it's a relatively defensive position that we can still attack from."

Sakura looked around dubiously. "There aren't many plants I can use near here. Are you sure we shouldn't keep looking?"

"And what plants would you be looking for?" Shimura sneered.

Sakura glared. "Well, considering none of us know what's going to happen, I don't know. That said, I'd at least like a _few_ options—maybe a few plants for healing nearby and a poison, or something."

"Or," Shimura scoffed, "you're just upset that I'm team leader and want to disagree with all my orders. I won't put up with dissent, Yamanaka, I can assure you of that."

"How about you just go and find some tomorrow, Yamanaka?" Sarutobi butted in. "I'm sure we'll have the time, and you can bring them back here—Shimura's right, it is a good position, if we're going to have to fight."

Sakura wanted to protest, but she also knew some small part of that was for exactly the reason Shimura said. Putting aside her misgivings she nodded her assent and studiously ignored Shimura's pointed words about her only agreeing once Sarutobi had told her to.

For all that the Sarutobi tended to get along with the Shimura, they were also really well known for working well with the Ino-Shika-Cho, and a going joke around the village was that the Yamanaka loved mind games, the Nara board games, and the Akimichi food, but all of them veritably _swooned_ over Sarutobi. If you asked Sakura there was very little truth to that rumor, but then she was from the inside looking out; never the best perspective when one wanted to get a full view of things.

"Fine then, your orders, Shimura?"

"Sarutobi, build a shelter. I'll hunt our meals. Yamanaka can go get her oh-so-important plants. We'll all meet back here in an hour to have dinner and set up a shelter. I'll cook tonight, and we'll set up a rotating schedule for all necessary jobs including watch duty then. Does that sound good, or does the little girl not like being told what to do?"

"Shimura." Sarutobi said, a tad warningly but more to acknowledge his orders.

"Shimura." Sakura said, to do the same.

"Fine. Go."

"Wake up!" Sarutobi shouted. Sakura jerked awake and scrambled to her feet in a matter of seconds, grabbing a kunai and the weird bark armor they'd begun making the night before. She peered around Sarutobi (she'd decided to face the sound of the noise, given that anyone on watch was supposed to position themselves between the enemy and their sleeping comrades) and then relaxed. Beside her Shimura did the same.

It was one of the testing chunin, and while Sakura had no doubt that while he wasn't here to offer them some pillows and a blanket to make their stay more comfortable, it was equally unlikely that they'd have to fight in the next few seconds.

"Finished rubbing the bedbugs out of your eyes?" The chunin mocked. "Good. Rendezvous at the second highest hill on the Training Field in twelve minutes." He disappeared.

"Well, fuck." Sakura said. This was the first time she'd been in this training ground, and based on her cellmates' expressions the same held true for them. All their run yesterday had proved was how large the area was—they may have never even seen the 'second highest hill', nevermind been able to compare it to all the other hills to know that.

"Any ideas?" Shimura asked after a couple seconds. He didn't look all that thrilled either.

"How about I climb a tree? We see what the highest hill looks like from there, go there and climb a tree on top of it, and see if that allows us to spot where the hill is—or at least where other people are." Sarutobi suggested. No one had a better plan so a second later he was scrambling up, and a second after that he'd found the right direction to head in and leapt down.

They were off.

Fifteen minutes later found them finally arriving at a clearing on top of the second highest hill, were several cell groups were already standing. Ten minutes (and many arrivals) after that, one of the chunin (the lot of which were lazing about at the edge of the clearing) stood.

"Has everyone arrived?"

Everyone nodded warily.

"And they have everything they need to be the 'bestest ninja ever!'?"

More wary nodding. Sakura checked herself; primitive bark armor, three kunai (she had the best aim with those out of the group, while Shimura had been given the others' shuriken. Sarutobi would have to rely on his chakra, but then he had the most of all of them and was better trained in its use anyway.)

"Great!" The chunin said. Sakura was getting really sick of his pseudo-happy tone. "Here's the plan: for the next five hours you guys get to fight each other! Isn't that wonderful? No serious injuries or death, but anything else goes. The group that has the fewest injuries at the end of the time will get information that may be necessary for completing the rest of the excursion; the second fewest will get a bit less information, and the third fewest will get less than that. The rest of you lot will get nothing. Ready?"

"How do we know who we're paired against?" Someone shouted out.

"Paired?" The chunin laughed. "This is not paired! This is every team against every other team!"

"How far are we allowed to spread out?" Shin, standing next to his cellmates, called out.

"Bottom of the hill, no further or you're disqualified." The chunin said. Then— "Begin!"

"I'll go against my _fans_." Shimura said, "you two pair up and get everyone else."

Sakura and Sarutobi nodded, then immediately turned and attacked their neighbor. Every other team, once they'd made their own plans, did the same.

It was a blood bath.

Sakura ducked, driving a kunai into someone's leg (though she couldn't tell who) while Sarutobi dealt with the shuriken which had been headed straight at her head. She had five kunai now (she'd been collecting them), but it wasn't as if either of them had shuriken so Sakura guessed he was actually pretty happy about the person who'd tried.

The person she'd stabbed went down and Sakura threw a quick hand signal Saruboti's way—it was time to reposition themselves.

"Where?" He asked.

Sakura looked around. Most people were down already—about twenty minutes had passed, but those twenty had been vicious—and those that were left were beginning to attempt to avoid each other, desperate to avoid additional injury. Sakura only had one scratch on her, directly below her right elbow, but Sarutobi was limping badly due to the actions of an Inuzaka's ninken, and she didn't know how Shimura was doing at all.

"Up." She decided. "I'll watch your back, just get a sit-rep."

Sarutobi grunted and began climbing—he was long past the point where tree walking using chakra was reasonable to do.

Sakura eyed her surroundings warily.

The kid she'd stabbed had scrambled away, and whoever had thrown the shuriken seemed to have disappeared too, but Sakura knew better than to let her guard down.

They had four hours and forty minutes of this hell left. She didn't know how they were going to survive.

"Shit." Sarutobi said above her.

"That bad?"

Sarutobi slid down. "Not exactly. It's just everyone's burrowed deep. I can't tell where anyone else is—not even Shimura." Then he blinked, and winced. "Hey, you collected some plants, right?" Sakura nodded. "Good, because Shimura needs them."

Sakura whipped around, finding Shimura hobbling towards them from a few feet away. Sarutobi and Sakura had managed to stay relatively unscathed, but the same could not be said for their team leader.

"Shit." Sakura said.

"Don't forget we have to last another four and a half hours." Sarutobi reminded her.

"Shit." She repeated.

It took a while, but using Sarutobi's shirt (the one least stained with blood) and some leaves that were supposed to help deal with cuts and possible infections she finally managed to patch Shimura up. Thankfully there seemed to have been an unvoiced agreement to pause the fight among the participants, so she had enough time to deal with all of his cuts rather than just prioritizing the worst. He'd be in a lot of pain, yeah, but hopefully he wouldn't get sick.

"We're screwed if there's any more Inuzaka out there." Shimura ground out. "I smell like weakness right now."

"I'm going to—I mean, should I try to use chakra sense, Shimura? I'm not perfect at it, but I should be able to give us a few seconds warning before anyone can reach us."

"Do that." He said, huffing as he forced himself up into a sitting position. "Sarutobi, how's the leg?"

"Could be better," the other boy said, "but my wraps blocked most of the damage—my leg's bruised, not bit."

"Good." Shimura frowned. "You any good at traps?"

"Middling at best." Sarutobi said. "How about you tell me what to do and I'll set the traps up?" As the boys finished fleshing out their own plans, Sakura settled into a position she knew she could keep for a few hours. She carefully opened her senses and began meticulously searching out any chakra signal she could find, no matter how seemingly irrelevant.

In the end it took nearly three hours for their preparations to finally be of use. By that point Sakura was nearly out of chakra (her sensing was still fairly chakra intensive, and would remain so until she had sufficient practice) and Shimura, while far better physically than he had been at the beginning of the wait, was also exhausted. Of them all Sarutobi was in the best condition but even he was beginning to lag under the pressure of the exertion he'd just put his body through and the difficulty of remaining constantly on alert for so long.

And, if that weren't bad enough, when they were finally attacked they didn't have to deal with just one team—no, that would be too easy. Instead, because apparently there was no justice in the world, they were attacked by three teams at once.

Their only saving grace was that none of the teams had actually allied with each other, so they were putting just as much effort into damaging one another as they were into hurting Sakura's team.

It was still grueling.

That fight lasted nearly twenty minutes before those who could flee did and those who couldn't were tied up and knocked unconscious. Sarutobi's limp was now much more pronounced, one of Shimura's fingers was broken, and Sakura was sporting a (Hyuuga-induced) useless left arm as well as a black eye and bruised ribs.

They cleaned up as best they could, but the final hour was hell. It wasn't because they were attacked again, thank god, but their exhaustion was such that it took all their effort to simply remain awake, much less alert.

When the chunin finally shouted that the exercise was over Sakura could barely bring herself to cheer.

They got fifth place.


	12. Academy: Year 5, Part 3

Shortly before the start of the June training exercise Sakura and the rest of the Yamanaka had gathered to celebrate the birthday of their current leader.

Dancing and food had been involved, as well as significant drinking for those old enough to partake, and Sakura had ended up sick in bed for the rest of the weekend because she'd eaten too much and too quickly and gave herself a headache to boot.

The experience had, of course, not been the worst thing Sakura had ever went through—not by a long shot—but it had been uniquely terrible in that the food inside her wanted to come out, and it didn't particularly care which side it came out of—even most of the poisons she'd been dosed with had a preference.

Two days into the training exercise she now had the dubious honor of having not only experienced those symptoms, but having also seen them occur to someone else and helped them through it.

In other words, while she'd managed to avoid any poisons she wasn't immune or resistant to, and Shimura had somehow managed to do the same, Sarutobi wasn't as lucky.

"Kill me. Kill me now." Sarutobi muttered as he curled into himself once more.

Sakura grimaced, watching his puke flow downstream. "I really hope no one is above us on the river."

"Too late now if they are." Shimura said. They had, in the midst of taking care of their sick teammate, managed to finish their camp set up (complete with a plethora of trapping defenses), so now Sakura's fearless leader was mostly focused on sharpening his knives and keeping watch when it wasn't his turn to take care of Sarutobi.

"Didn't you hear me? I said kill me!" The lump next to the river whined.

"He'll be fine, right?"

"Yes, he'll be fine. I already told you that he'll be fine." Sakura said. "In fact, I'm fairly sure I've told you he'll be fine every single time you've asked."

"Just double checking." Shimura smirked. Then he frowned, looking at Sarutobi. Sakura did too. She was quite sure that he'd be fully recovered within a day or two—none of his symptoms were severe enough for her to worry, and as long as they made sure he was as hydrated as he could be he'd make it through fine—but they didn't know when the next task would come and having a downed teammate would never be a good thing. "You should go collect some more plants. I'll take my shift with him now."

Sakura agreed easily enough and dashed off to grab some of the plants she'd noted as particularly useful some distance from their camp.

She had only just managed to grab some bark that, when made into a tea or paste, would reduce fever when a Chunin appeared in front of her and she was knocked unconscious.

(Honestly, this whole kidnapping thing was getting annoying. She'd have to figure out how better to avoid it.)

She awoke in the middle of someone else's camp—more specifically, in Teru Inuzaka's.

He was muttering to himself, using words which she wasn't technically allowed to say as he paced around the edge of his campsite.

"What... happened?" She muttered, sitting up. 

"It's the second exercise." Teru said. "One member is kidnapped and put in another camp, and the other two of us have to keep the enemy placed in out camp—that's you—from escaping or being rescued and rescue our own member at the same time.

Should I have told you that?" 

"Why not?" She said, wanting to keep him talking. "Wait—why didn't you seek?"

"What a great, fantastic question!" He snapped. "If only I had thought of that! But no, I'm _stupid_ , so let's ignore that I out of anyone would know where they stuffed Honda! No—I'm an idiot, so of course I can't do _that_. _Satoshi_ will do the seeking—he's really smart, after all, and I'm not. But I have my ninken, so I can guard, because there's two of us and that's all I'm useful for! Because that makes sense! It's not like first branch Inuzaka are known for tracking! That's be insane! No—"

It quickly became clear that Teru wasn't about to shut up, and Sakura had already gotten the information she needed from him anyway, so instead she took stock of her situation.

She was tied up, was the first thing. On top of that the spot Teru's team had picked wasn't a bad one, but it'd be hard to escape from—they were on a pile of rock several feet tall which, while it didn't even near the top of the trees in the area, still allowed good vision for the entire surrounding area.

So that was the bad news.

The good news was that Teru really would have been much better at seeking. She had no idea what Satoshi was thinking, really. First branch Inuzuka needed to move, to be active, or else they felt pent up and began trying to distract themselves in whatever way possible. On top of that while she had clearly been searched (her plants and kunai were gone) they'd not thought to check her boots—she could still feel her spare miniature blade digging its flat end into the side of her foot. Oh—Teru was winding down.

"—it's just... it's stupid."

"Satoshi sounds like an ass of a teammate."

"He is! Do you—do you know what he said when we arrived? He said that I should just keep my mouth closed and follow his orders! And then, when I called him—well, it's not important—but then he said if I acted like a mutt he was going to treat me like one! I attacked him after that, of course, and we got a couple good hits off, but then Honda had to go and—"

Teru distracted again, Sakura began searching out his ninken Yasai. She couldn't find him, which was worrying, but at the very least she'd be able to get out of her binding.

It took nearly fifteen minutes of carefully wiggling the blade free, while all the while looking like she was attentively listening and keeping an eye out for the small but increasingly powerful Yasai, before she managed to free her hands, knees, and feet.

And then, at a loss of what better to do and with Yasai still not visible, she ran.

Teru Inuzaka may not have had the temperament to be guard, but Satoshi's arguments held some grains of truth—having a partner was extraordinarily helpful. It took Sakura all of fifteen seconds to find out where Yasai had been hiding: the ninken had been lapping the area just out of sight, and the second she moved he had shot straight at her.

Thank the gods he was still so young—his teeth dug into her leg, tearing strips off her skin, but that was all he could do.

She gasped in pain, but kept running—Yasai may be painful, but Teru was faster than her and could actually recapture her, and if she didn't do something fast that was exactly what would happen.

Of course, Sakura knew that, and already had several plans in mind. Plans 1-11 required specific circumstances to occur, but she could already do plan 12.

Sakura lunged for the nearest tree branch, grabbing it and yanking herself up as Yasai dragged on her hamstring and Teru threw a kunai disturbingly close to her stomach. She swung, thrusting herself from the first tree and into the second, before beginning to drag herself up after Yasai let go in the air. Teru, as she had hoped she would, began scrambling after her, leaving his poor partner on the floor. She scanned the surrounding area but nowhere looked familiar, so instead she decided to aim for the river—theoretically her own camp should lie somewhere on her bank.

She jumped. And jumped. And jumped.

Teru jumped. And jumped. And jumped.

Yasai ran, yapping, after them.

The river ran at a steady enough rate that, unless you held on to something or actively fought against the current, you would be pulled downstream. It also wasn't necessarily the most ecologically diverse—the speed of the water seemed to deter most fish and the flat rocky bottom kept the plant life to a minimum. It was relatively shallow, too; for all that it seemed fairly fast the river near Sakura's camp was about three meters deep and the river nearest to her now seemed shallower than that.

Its clear water and fast movement meant she couldn't easily hide in it using any academy taught technique (not to mention Teru currently being _literally centimeters behind her_ ) and its lack of depth meant she couldn't very well dive in it and move with the current either.

Even then, the river was still helpful. Teru's camp, she'd have bet anything, was in the minority—a majority of the other camps would doubtless have camped out just like her own: directly against the river.

And if she could get one of them to go after her and Teru...

Well, then suddenly Teru's job was divided between capture and evasion and hers hadn't changed at all.

She grinned, and jumped to another branch. Across the river.

Teru followed loyally after her but Yasai barked, trapped on the other side.

"Damn it!" Teru shouted. "Yasai, follow from the other side!"

Perfect.

Teru may have been older and more physically adept then she was, but Sakura could still work her small size to her advantage: without hesitation she began leaping up the riverbank once more, in each jump choosing the most entangled of the trees to throw herself on to and scramble up. Teru had no problem jumping after her, but when it came to catching on a branch strong enough to support his weight and fighting his way through the mass of branches to get to the next tree he had significantly more trouble, and before long she had put nearly a full tree between them. Unfortunately it wasn't to last—she was tiring quicker than he—but by the luck of the gods it did last long enough for the rest of her plan to suddenly become much, much more relevant.

"Wait—who's that?!" A voice called out from below; another campsite barely blurred into vision before Sakura was already jumping away, leaving Teru the clear and obvious target.

It took another half an hour for Sakura to get far enough away from Teru that she was absolutely certain she had a few minutes to spare (running through the first camp didn't deter him, but did apparently stop his ninken, while the second and third definitely put a damper on his speed.) Once she was sure she was at least temporarily in the clear she rolled around in some mud (gross) and then darted up the trees again, moving carefully along the river for any sign of her own camp.

It took another two hours to find it.

"Hey."

"Holy—How?!" Sakura Hisai, apparently their team's hostage, yelped when Sakura appeared right beside her.

"I escaped. I am back." She said.

She looked around—Sarutobi still looked like hell but at least he'd managed to pass out, while Shimura was keeping watch. "Noticed you added a couple more traps."

"Can't be too careful." Shimura muttered. Then, "good job. Getting back safe, I mean."

"Well, with Sarutobi's condition I knew rescue was out of the question." Sakura said. She moved to check him over—best make sure he really hadn't taken a turn for the worst in her absence.

"Exactly. Should we be keeping an eye out for pursuers?"

"I'm pretty sure I lost him, but Teru's an Inuzuka, so who knows?"

"I don't know if I can take another nineteen days of this." Sarutobi muttered.

"You're awake!" Sakura said. "That's good. Probably. But you should go back to sleep anyway, because you're still way too sick-looking."

"Is that a clinical diagnosis?" Shimura murmured acerbically. Before she could reply, however, everyone's head snapped towards a noise just on the edge of their hearing, and too far away to be seen through the brush.

Sakura's jaw snapped shut, and Sarutobi's was quick to follow. Hisai, to Sakura's surprise, didn't call out—she wondered if Shimura had threatened her or something.

Shimura's hands flashed, rapid fire, telling Sakura to get ready—he'd set up a lot of traps in that direction, so they weren't going to pursue.

Everyone held their breath.

Then—a yelp.

Sakura _loved_ traps.

Fifteen minutes later, they had two victims—the latter of which was gagged, because Shin (sorry Shin!), unlike Hisai, was far less easily threatened

Several hours later, when night fell, Sakura realized that Teru had never mentioned when the exercise was supposed to end.

She asked Shimura.

"They didn't actually give an end." He sighed. "So fuck if I know. Hope its soon, though—keeping watch is going to be hell tonight."

The kidnapping exercise lasted forty eight hours. The next one, which required that each team come together in a single clearing and complete an obscenely difficult obstacle course, lasted a full day. The following exercise—covertly sending messages through 'enemy' territory to another camp—went for three days in total, and the one after that (a physical fitness competition) ended up going for exactly 38 hours, the end of which was determined by the time it took the second to last person to collapse.

On and on the days went, with pseudo-missions and competitions and absolute information black-outs and exhaustion, and by the end of the three weeks Sakura was fairly sure no one in her class would willingly test out to genin early.

Fourteen tried.

Four were back in their class within the week.


	13. Academy: Year 6

Sakura hated Inoichi.

The boy (because he really was a boy, for all that he saw himself as her elder) was only two and a half years younger than her, but he was honestly one of the most stuck-up pricks she'd ever met.

Anyway.

It wasn't particularly relevant now, so she tried to ignore her burning hatred for her future leader.

Right now she was helping Kohana in the Yamanaka greenhouses.

Academy students, technically, were exempt from Yamanaka clan chores—everyone currently in the shinobi path was—but technical exemption didn't work so well in real life so everyone was expected to help out anyway, and the only real difference was that shinobi (and future shinobi) were allowed to actually _chose_ where they'd want to spend their time.

Sakura always chose to do whatever Kohana did, so at the end of the day she spent a _lot_ of time staring at plants.

Today many of the green-thumbs including Sakura's next youngest sister were being put to work in the greenhouses harvesting soybeans for the Akimichi; their alliance, after all, was built on food.

Sakura picked at the dirt in her nails, staring at the huge baskets ready to be carted off. Out of all the skills she learned in the academy, she didn't think she'd be using them to make a harvest as efficient as possible, but here we were.

"Guess what?" Kohana sang, coming to stand next to her.

"What?" Sakura asked. She scrambled up the nearest tree (the normal way, she had school tomorrow and there was no use tiring out) and Kohana was quick to follow.

"Guess!"

"Hm... you yelled at a customer, lost your job, and are now going to start a beet farm with the first Uchiha you see."

"What? No. Come on, guess something possible."

"I don't know! Every time you ask me to guess it ends up being something entirely different, how am I supposed to figure out what this time is about?"

Kohana huffed but apparently conceded defeat, settling herself into a crook of the tree's branches before continuing. "Well, I was working at the flower shop yesterday, and as you know it was the clan Matron's birthday that day, so who do I see walking into the shop that afternoon but the clan heir himself, Inoichi?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You cared a lot less about him a few years ago, you know."

"Yeah, well I can't remember that so it doesn't count, okay? Anyway, he comes into the shop and says he wants to get some flowers for his mother's birthday, so I helped him pick some out—free of charge of course—"

"Why of course? He's the clan heir. He can afford a few blooms."

"Well, it was more like a bouquet, and anyway I didn't do it because I thought he couldn't afford it. Will you let me continue?"

"I don't feel like I have much choice."

"Great! So... yes, so I built him this bouquet—it was absolutely gorgeous, you should have seen it, I based it off the ones we saw at neighbor Taka's wedding but with a few flowers switched around to better convey the meaning—and Inoichi, Inoichi said it was just about the best bouquet around—he said his mother would have to love it!"

Sakura smiled, though she didn't really want to. "It's nice that he complemented your work." She said, instead of 'I'm sure he only complemented your work because his mother had probably already been super passive-aggressive about him apparently not thinking to get her a gift until the afternoon of her own birthday, and he wanted to convince himself the flowers would solve everything.'

"You really don't like him." Kohana observed.

Their uncle—the man running this particular harvesting venture—called out that the break would be ending in five minutes.

"Nope." Sakura agreed. "I just think he's a bit stuck-up and selfish, really, but those aren't the qualities I particularly want in someone who is supposed to lead our clan."

Now it was Kohana's turn to roll her eyes. "He's four!"

"Did I act like that when I was four? Did you? I mean, we're seven and eight now, and you don't see either of us shoving people over just because they're in the way, or demanding respect from people our own age, or throwing an actual _tantrum_ in a restaurant just because they changed the menu and no longer serve our favorite dessert?"

"...He just needs to grow up a little. Not everyone can be child geniuses like you."

"So you think you acted the way he is when you were four?"

"No, but Sakura, he's our future clan leader. They spoiled him a bit, yes, but... well, if nothing else, being a ninja should toughen him up."

Sakura grimaced. "I hope it does that before someone dies from his incompetency." She was, perhaps, being a bit rude, but then she'd also seen him skip school four out of five times last week (keeping other students in the academy, apparently, being not entertaining enough) and, at least according to rumor, spending the entire day doing nothing but playing games and slacking off.

He'd been given a slap on the wrist.

People matured at different ages, Sakura knew, but what kind of clan leader would they end up with if no one told him to grow up at all?

Sakura hated taijutsu lessons. It wasn't that she was bad at them—she was around the middle of the girls in her class despite being the youngest—it was just...

Painful.

It didn't even matter whether she won or lost. Either way she was going to have to take at least some hits, and she'd never quite gotten past her inherent pain aversion, for all that she forced herself to act as if she had.

Pain sucked, and for all that she could objectively see the point in being able to defend yourself in hand-to-hand combat, when the taijutsu lessons were actually going on all she could think was how she wanted to be doing just about anything else.

A more bearable course, at least for Sakura, were the "Konoha Lessons." Spanning everything from history to law to government to (surprisingly) _housekeeping lessons_ , the class was generally the first one they had in the building every morning.

"Today," Sensei Utatane began the second everyone had taken their seats (she was never one to waste time), "we will focus on the role of the Diplomacy Department: international relations. To begin with, how many of you know what the relations are like between Konoha and, say, Kumo?"

Hands shot up.

"Saito."

"Um, not good." The boy said. "After us they're considered the most powerful, right? And then they were our main enemies in the first shinobi war, and they killed a bunch of our military and civilians, including the second Hokage."

"Correct. To continue, Kumo, due to the diversity of its region, is uniquely suited to the purely isolationist policies it has chosen to adapt..."

Sakura began diligently scribbling down her own unique shorthand (a combination of the typical kanji and English letters, created both in response to Teru using his ninken to cheat off of her and to demonstrate her effort to create her own code to those curious), but as she did so she couldn't help but glance to her right.

The year four classroom had gradually rising platforms for the desks just like the earlier years, but unlike them each desk was not a separate entity—instead three students fit at every table, and nine students fit in every row. In addition to this change the platforms had gone from uniformly rectangular to slightly curved, allowing the outermost desks to point slightly inward towards the center of the chalkboard.

Sakura was sure the reasons for this were many and various and not at all arbitrary, but the result was that at her seat she had a perfect view of nearly the entire classroom, including the Hyuga twins, who looked...

They were ten, she knew. About the middle of the class with age—the Hyuga usually aimed there, while the Uchiha went younger and the Ino-Shika-Cho kids went only after all three of them were judged ready, which made ages very variable.

They were quite good, too—top of the class in just about everything. Hiashi lagged a bit in battle analysis, and Hizashi was similarly tripped up by battle strategy, and both were absolutely miserable at infiltration, but Sakura had no doubt they would be excellent members of front line teams, just as they were aiming.

That said, recently there had been tension between the two.

They'd always been competitive, but now it had gotten to the point where they couldn't even write notes about Kumo's free five-year universal education system without subtlety turning their backs on the other.

Sakura's eyes darted further up, to where Shin was writing next to her. He'd been watching her look, and now blinked lazily as she silently asked him for answers: he had none to give.

The other twins in the class, 'the Inuzaka brats', as Sensei Utatane put it, were doing fine as always. Of course, they had always been a little more aggressive to each other than Hiashi and Hizashi, but then they _were_ Inuzaka.

That afternoon, what remained of them met up at the Training Ground (Sachiko had been disappeared ages ago, and Aiko hadn't lasted much longer before she was removed from the academy to begin her apprenticeship; with Yasuo testing out at the end of the training exercise, that only left chinmoku and Bokuso.)

"What's up with the Hyuuga?" She asked the second they settled in.

"They're Hyuuga." Juro said. "Who knows?"

"I believe," Bokuso interrupted. "That there is currently no small amount of turmoil in the clan. Many of our ninja are work together, and it has been reported that the Hyuuga, and in particular the branch Hyuuga, have begun to act increasingly agitated over the past few months."

"Do you know why?" Shin asked.

"That is not knowledge that my clan possesses."

Shin paused, then refrained. "Can you guess why?"

"They likely chafe at the leadership of the main house." Bokuso stated matter-of-factly. "As we have previously discussed, the control of the branch house by the main house, and the subjection that control has led to, is analogous enough to slavery that only the treaties signed at their initial joining keeps charges from being filed."

"So you think they're going to revolt?" Sakura asked, mind whirring as she tried to judge their likelihood to succeed.

"Improbable." Bokuso said. "Their rebellion will likely be limited to underperforming their duties as significantly as they believe they are able to get away with."

"Why?" Juro asked, but nearly before he'd finished the question his mouth snapped closed.

There were rumors, rumors which had never managed to be substantiated or disproven, about what exactly the seal on branch Hyuuga was capable of.

If even a quarter of it were true, then of course they wouldn't revolt. There was a difference between fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds, after all, and punching the ground to try to get to the other side of the earth.

Still, it was something to add to their ever growing list of 'to-be-fixed' and set aside for later.

They were in the middle of a field cooking lesson when the banging started.

Sensei Utatane didn't look concerned, so clearly it was expected, but that didn't really quell the curiosity of her students.

"Keep an eye on portion control!" She reminded them, blissfully ignoring their faces popping up like prairie dogs towards the source of the noise. "Remember that you may not necessarily know how long a mission will last!"

Sakura glanced down, ensuring her cuts were alright, then back up.

The banging hadn't stopped. It was December now, the rainy season finally over, and Sakura had had _plans_ this week. In exchange for helping Ren take care of his kids when both they and his wife had caught the flu she had been promised tickets to Round 1 of Jonin promotions (the only round she was allowed to watch, anyway.)

Those promotions were happening tomorrow, and if this impeded her from watching them she was going to be very upset.

She eyed the rest of chinmoku, but they were as confused as she, before targeting Bokuso. After a second she got a slight nod. That was enough.

The banging did not cease as they completed their cooking lesson, as they filed outside for taijutsu, as they filed back inside for ninjutsu lessons... in fact, the banging was still ongoing when they were dismissed for the day, and walked out of the front door to avoid their younger counterparts leaping out of their windows.

"Well?" Sakura asked nearly the second they stepped foot on their favored training grounds.

"It seems the academy is expanding." Bokuso said. "They appear to be preparing to add a basement level."

Before he could expand (or Sakura could ask more questions) a shadow covered the entrance.

"Aiko!" The members of Training Ground 40 shouted. They hadn't seen the tall and gangly girl since she'd started her apprenticeship in the Justice Department, forgoing her initial plan of serving in a genin team to go straight to work instead.

"Hey guys!" She grinned, flopping next to Shin as everyone adjusted to her surprise appearance. "What's up?"

She looked good, Sakura decided. As confident as always, but less harried than she had been when she was still attending the academy.

"Academy's adding a basement, apparently." Juro said. He offered her a sandwich, which she accepted, before repeating the act with everyone else.

"Oh, I know about _that_." Aiko said. "I was kind of hoping for something more interesting."

"Do you know why it's expanding then?"

"...Do you know how big the incoming class is?" Four heads shook. " _300_ new students started last summer. 304 are supposed to start this winter, and the numbers still growing. We've had a population boom since the village was founded, you know, even with the wars, and it's still going on. Basically they just need more space."

300.

That was...

That was an entire additional starting class from when Sakura began, and that didn't include the new rural academy that she'd heard had finished being built last month, or all the kids that were starting later than their first year, besides.

That was a lot of ninja.

"Come on, don't you have anything else?" Aiko asked, apparently in no mood to play information broker.

"I'm going to watch the jonin matches tomorrow." Sakura volunteered.

 _That_ made the other girl lean forward.

"Really? Anyone good up?"

"Ren's not trying till next year." Sakura said. "22's apparently his lucky number, so he thinks it might help. Sayuri says there's no way he's ready, though. Out of those actually trying, the only big name is Jiraiya."

"Jiraiya the Hokage's student?" Shin said, sitting up in surprise. "I thought they'd done theirs two years ago, at sixteen."

"Tsunade and Orochimaru did, not Jiraiya." Sakura explained. "He wanted a match just as hard as theirs." Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but both of the jonin-level former students of the Hokage had double specialized: iryoninjutsu and frontline for the Senju, and research and frontline for the snake summoner.

In contrast, Jiraiya had exactly one specialty: fuinjutsu. While he was apparently already one of the best in the village at it, it also meant that traditionally he wouldn't be pitted against a frontline jonin to earn his promotion. Because he'd demanded the harder battle, he'd apparently also been made to postpone two years to develop the necessary frontline skills to take on the task.

"Ah." Shin said, leaning back into Aiko. "Well, it should be interesting, at least. Might even give you a few ideas on how to use fuinjutsu yourself."

Sakura snorted. "I'm alright with working off of what is already known, thank you very much." She said. "I personally have no interest in trying not to blow myself up on a daily basis."


	14. Genin: Start of Genin, Part 1

Dozens of tiny new genin stared straight ahead as Sensei Nara (who had taught Sakura's neighboring class) cleared his throat for the third time that minute.

So far, and with significant apparent effort on his part, he had managed to mete out four teams for their senseis to pick up.

Bokuso was already gone. He had been placed under an Uchiha with Eiji Sarutobi (who had originally been intended for Aiko's team before her career path changed) and Kegawa Inuzuka (the twin to Teru, and thankfully significantly less of a cheat); the team was clearly intended to focus on hostage-taking.

The other Ino-Shika-Cho trio had also disappeared; they were already being trained up as a general reinforcement team.

Sakura, Shin, and Juro (despite having been made a team before all of them could walk in a straight line) were still waiting.

Sensei Nara finally gathered up the energy to list the next team: an Uchiha and two kids Sakura didn't recognize.

Then another—a Mitokado, Utatane, and Shimura genin, one of the village's favorite set-ups, led by an Akimichi.

Finally, after a Shimura-Inuzuka-Hyuuga team led by a non-clan member, their own team was listed.

"...and Yamanaka Sakura, led by... Sensei Mitokado Supaku. You are Team 18, and will be meeting at Training Ground 52."

Sakura... didn't know that name.

Not surprising, but still.

Chinmoku filed out.

.

Training Ground 52 was one of the odder ones. The majority of training grounds, or at least those that didn't have very many restrictions on use, were fairly straightforward: some amount of empty area and, if located near the edge of the walls, many trees to go with. Some were lucky enough to have water, several in the center of the city were completely concrete and included equipment, and those that were the furthest out featured significant ecological changes to try to expose Konoha shinobi to every possible terrain.

Then there were the more unusual ones, thrust wherever there was room.

The 52nd Training Ground was closeted in by the concrete border of the Hyuuga clan on the left and the last of three Mitokado apartment buildings on the right.

More importantly, it was a building.

Kind of.

In truth, it was a set of four concrete walls with a square ingress on every side and a concrete floor and roof, with a small gutter dripping the roof's collection of water slowly down one side.

Chinmoku approached the construct warily.

As they inched forward, Sakura twitched. She glanced at each of her teammates in turn, getting Shin (who acted as their main combatant) to scout ahead while Juro lagged behind. She personally couldn't sense anyone but that didn't mean they weren't going to walk straight into a trap; jonin tests were notoriously difficult to plan ahead for.

Thankfully, it was as trap-less as it seemed, and Sakrua and Juro had no problem following Shin inside.

Instead a pile of scrolls sat dead center. A single card, bent in half and placed precariously on top of the heap, read "Sort."

"Sort how?" Juro asked.

"This is a stupid Jonin test." Shin muttered. Neither moved—they were officially genin now, which meant that they waited for their team leader before making any decisions.

"Shin, you start reading through the scrolls." Sakura directed, deciding it was best if their fastest reader got started in case the test was timed. "Juro and I will check out the rest of the Ground then join you."

After ensuring that everything else was as empty and devoid of traps as the central structure Juro and Sakura quickly retreated to the pile of paper.

"As far as I can tell these are all cases directed for Konoha to take, but beyond that there's no rhyme or reason—the difficulties vary, the mission parameters are all over the place, the dates stretch as far back as the year of Konoha's founding, even whether the mission was even accepted or already completed... it's unclear what context we're supposed to use to sort these with."

"Alright," Sakura said, picking up one to read through herself. "Well, we know all missions are sorted by rank, so we'll do that first—five or six piles to start with. Then we can further order them by the time the missions take, because Sensei Utatane said that was a major factor in Konohagakure's chances of accepting a mission. Then... then let's do the type of mission. After that, if we still have time and if we still have multiple scrolls in each category, then we can see about further dividing them by completion and other aspects."

Chinmoku got to work. It took hours, in the end—there were only 56 scrolls, but their opaqueness varied considerably, and many had to be re-read over and over again before it was clear what rank should even be used in the sorting; any decisions that had been made were blacked out, meaning they could only rely on what was asked for and, occasionally, who was sent out.

They stopped for lunch—Juro had been kind enough to make them bentos—but it wasn't until 14:00 that their scrolls were in any semblance of order.

Then Sakura jerked.

"A good start," a voice behind her said, "and sufficient to pass your final test."

She whipped around, watching out of the corner of her eye as Juro and Shin also jerked to face the new intruder, the latter whipping his shadows out in the other directions as he did to act as an immediate vicinity alert.

The man who could only be Supaku Mitakado towered above them, easily taller than any of their parents. He had a long, rectangular face, and his hair was short and black, as was normal for both his clan and Fire Country as a whole.

He wore the typical garments of a Konoha diplomat, a sort of compromise between the strict formal garments required by nobles and the more mobile style worn by shinobi, and had no visible weapons, but in Konoha that little tidbit was meaningless.

"The purpose of this exercise was to show you exactly how much goes into processing a single mission. In reality, the Leaf uses a sorting system for missions which includes nine digits and two kanji, as well as an additional two digits and kanji to be used as a unique identifier. The exercise also serves the additional purpose of helping you better understand the theoretical missions in your future as well as the various methods that can be used for determining the importance of a task and how the ideal method will shift with the goal.

Given my sparse instructions and your lack of experience, you did well. Congratulations."

As he spoke, Sakura studied her new sensei carefully.

The Mitokado were an older non-kekkai genkai clan that, like Ino-Shika-Cho, had been part of an alliance prior to the village's founding.

Most clans were, actually—the Hyuuga with Hatake and Kurama (though the latter was nearly extinct), the Uchiha with the Aburame and Hagoromo (who chose not to join the village upon its founding), the Inuzuka, Senju, and Uzumaki, the Lees and Sarutobis...

While Ino-Shika-Cho was the longest lasting alliance by a significant margin, during the warring clan era every clan needed to know that at least one family wasn't out to get them.

The Mitokado had had such a relationship with the Utatane and Shimura, and were best known for their ability to fight on equal ground with kekkai genkai users and live to tell the tale. Beyond that Sakura knew little, as she'd never shared a class with a member of the clan. She did, however, know that they considered the ability to control one's information flow—to not show unintended emotion, to not have 'loose lips', to be capable of withstanding significant torture—to be one of the most important aspects of being shinobi.

Nothing in the man's behavior thus far showed that he was in any way an unusual member of her clan.

She was happy, then, that the second she was alerted to his presence she had wiped the surprise off her face and began actively monitoring every movement she made. Her initial surprise was okay—there was no way to avoid it and it was likely his intended result—but even expressing relief that they passed might not be appreciated, so she remained expressionless as he watched them equally blankly in return.

"We are to be a diplomacy centered team." He said at last. "While I understand that such is none of your respective goals for chunin, I assure you your own career paths will not be held back. You have been chosen as such a team because as your clans are well respected in the Capital you are a reasonable team to represent Konoha as assistants to the Leaf contingent during the spring session of the imperial court. I will be leading that contingent, and over the next half year my primary goal will be to prepare you for your roles there and ensure you will be effective shinobi far into the future."

"Hai, sensei."

"We will begin tomorrow, at dawn. Please arrive with a full analysis of yourself and your teammates—to be completed alone—as well as anything you additionally feel you may need."

"May we have additional information on what might be needed?" Sakura asked.

"Pack as if you will not go home for several days." Sensei Mitokado responded.

The team dispersed.

Sakura's mother had not met her sensei before, but she assured Sakura that the Mitokado had a great reputation; in fact, one member was currently sitting as a Village Elder.

Sakura already knew that.

She wanted to know more about this man in particular.

She didn't necessarily mind being forced into a diplomatic role. Few ninja actively sought such a career, and there certainly wasn't enough of them to field a full team of assistants for each season's court session.

Truthfully, Sakura was just wary of the unknown. The Mitokado were one of the largest clans that she had yet to have regular interactions with, and their reputation—though generally good—was generally dwarfed by those of the Utatane (who were far more numerous) and Shimura (who seemed to be more publicly active than the other two combined.)

Comparatively, the Mitokado seemed to fade into the background.

Sakura wondered how much of that impression was simply because she had no Aiko or Ryota to immediately think of.

She went to bed early, wanting as much time in her comfortable bed as possible before whatever Sensei had planned, then met up with Shin and Juro nearly an hour before dawn.

"Mom didn't know anything more than we already do." Sakura whispered.

"Same." Shin said. "My uncle had heard of him being nominated to run the spring delegation, but that's it."

"How does that work, again?" Juro asked.

Shin, who had taken the Diplomacy elective and was therefore undoubtedly the main cause of their immediate future, rubbed his head. "It's... basically there's the Konohaga Emissaries, right? They each stay in the Capital for a year at a time, but most of the time when they're not there they are visiting the courts of other Daimyo or hidden villages.

On top of the emissaries there's the delegation. That one stays for two months at a time, arriving a few weeks before that season's court session begins and leaving a few weeks after it ends. There are four sessions a year, so four delegations, and most of the members are the same ones every time, plus assistants. That's us—we're not expected to speak for Konoha in any way, just do all the little chores the rest of the delegation don't have the time or care to do."

"Okay... so we're only going to do this for two months?"

"Most likely, yeah. It's just really important that we behave right because the delegation as a whole represents Konoha, which relies on the Daimyo for its legitimacy and money and a bunch of other stuff too."

"And that's true for most Daimyo-Kage relationships." Sakura added. "The only ones that are different are Earth, which claims the Daimyo and Kage are on equal levels, and Water, whose Daimyo is completely—unwillingly—subordinate to the Mist."

Juro made a noise.

"Not enough samurai." Sakura explained. "Every other Kage had many more samurai, and therefore much more power."

"Mind you, officially every daimyo outranks their land's kage." Shin tacked on. "Reality is just a bit more—"

Every member of chinmoku, as one, stopped. Every member of chinmoku, as one, stared.

There was a horse on Training Ground 52.


	15. Genin: Start of Genin, Part 2

There _was a horse_ in Konohagakure.

 _A horse._

That just... didn't happen.

The only reason Sakura could even recognize a horse was because a few of the Akimichi lands that were outside the walls had some for plowing purposes.

Horses. Were. Not. Allowed. Inside. Konoha.

Ever.

And now there was a horse on their training ground.

It was as if reality had turned on its head.

Sakura had a feeling that she shouldn't be taking this that badly, but it could not be emphasized enough: no hoofed animal was ever allowed inside Konohagakure, with the singular exception of the Nara deer, an exception which had been there since the founding of the city.

The exception did not allow for horses.

And yet there was one.

It was right in front of them.

"This," Sensei Mitokado announced as he stepped out from the construct, "is a horse. You will be expected to know how to ride one before spring. We will begin now."

 _You could ride them?_

Wait, no, samurai rode horses.

Still...

Horses were living things. Why would you... well, why would you force them to just carry yourself around if you were fully capable of walking?

"How many of you have seen a horse before?"

Sakura and Juro rose their hands. Shin did not. He seemed... daunted, Sakura supposed, by the sheer size of the animal.

"How many of you have ridden one, even bareback, before?"

 _Bareback?_

Horses, Sensei Mitokado explained, were used by the cavalry divisions amongst the samurai; it was they who tended, on the whole, to be the most deadly when facing off against shinobi, especially because they had an entire archery division within the cavalry.

Horse riding was therefore a sign of being a great warrior, and while they would likely only ever mount a horse while riding in or out of the Capital it was nonetheless important to show their strength in their ability to ride.

Sakura, being female, would never have been a samurai in the first place, but the shinobi did not care and that translated to the importance of showing that she, too, was a great warrior.

Which meant that instead of simply two, all three genin spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon falling off the apparently completely docile animal.

Over and over again they trotted around the structure, trying to avoid the stares of adults and children alike as they did their best to stay seated on the saddle or, even worse, were put in charge of cleaning up after the horse and saving the results as fertilizer for Mitokado lands.

The entire experience was...

Sakura was very happy shinobi did not use horses.

As the sun finally sank down to the last quarter of sky they were allowed to finish, and Sensei Mitokado allowed them a break as he walked the horse out of the village to spend the night in a neighboring stable.

Unfortunately, they were still not allowed to go home.

"It is time," the man said, "for sleep deprivation training."

Joy.

"Already?" Juro asked, whining as he sat up in surprise. He was the most tired of all of them—his family training had only ended two days before, and the main reason his was so much later than the Nara or Yamanaka was because it was thought to be too dangerous to do when too young.

He was also half his normal weight, and had warned them it would take some time to get up to a mass that was healthy and allowed him to fully act as an offensive member of the team as well as their medic.

"Yes." Sensei said. "No point in delaying it."

"So what are we going to do for the night?" Sakura asked. She was... less put out, she supposed. Sleep deprivation torture was part of Yamanaka family training, so she already had a good idea of what to expect.

"Drills." Sensei replied. "Not physical ones—you are clearly not going to be at your best—but we will begin with mental ones and slowly shift to stretches and simple exercises as you begin to lag. Then... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves, though I will say those little analyses I had you fill out will become quite important." The man's inscrutable face broke into a smile, and he stared down at them as Juro whimpered and Shin groaned.

In total they lasted about two full days. The end was... not pretty, but technically they were all still awake. Juro passed out first, which wasn't surprising, and Shin second. Sakura had simply been told she could sleep after the boys fell, and saw no point in admitting she wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway.

The next weeks were filled with similarly daunting tasks. Now that they were finally out of the Academy the pace of education seemed to have picked up to a near unbelievable rate; by the time they were chunin they would be expected to actually be useful, and in half a year most of the rest of their time would be stripped away for public service, so currently the most important thing was to cram as much information and knowledge as possible into their heads and bodies as quickly as possible and ignore actual utility until later.

In other words, they were averaging four D-ranks a week, all crammed in the weekends, their theoretical 'free time'.

"It's free after you're done." Sensei said. "Until then you still have work to do."

The rest of the week was dedicated to more novel pursuits.

Whenever they weren't learning to ride a horse in one of the, as it turns out, numerous ways they would be expected to know, they were instead being through put short rotas with the Guards, Tracking, and other branches of the military. When they weren't doing _that_ , they were being shoved into lakes to learn how to swim, or on small skiffs to learn how they move with the wind and water (that had been a several day trip, actually, to get to a lake large enough to bother with.) Otherwise they might be learning how to walk vertically, walk at angles, walk upside down. Maybe if they were doing well enough with that, or their chakra was too low to continue anyway, they might work on marches and other versions of shinobi conduct instead.

Some days they spent working through the simplest of the immunities to develop, or learning how to work with various pieces of equipment they might later have to use. Other times they were set against obstacle courses to learn how to work as a team and, more than that, to work as _their_ team. There were minor bits of torture training as well, but nowhere near as bad as Sakura had already gone through; much of it was even described, rather than forced upon them physically.

Whenever they were too tired, too exhausted for any kind of chakra training, or physical training, or even mental exercises then Sensei reverted to memorization.

In other words, law.

Every law.

Since the founding of Konoha.

It would get worse, too, he warned: as the deadline for the Capital neared they would be expected to know more, to know _who_ was in the Capital, _how_ to do their job, _what_ their goals were...

For now the kinesthetic education was more important, but later the words would be just as significant, just as vital for Sakura, Shin, and Juro to know.

And even when they were so exhausted that they had no hope of parroting back the pages-long laws that some idiots had thought up, Sensei still wasn't done: "Art is an important part of Capital life, and you must be able to recognize and describe every popular style on sight. Juro, punch Shin; I believe he's fallen asleep. Stop with the groaning, Shin, or else we will go back to law."

Sakura didn't remember Ren's genin years. She only barely remembered Sayuri's, and then mostly because it took so long for her to bother moving on. Aoi hadn't really had any years, and neither had the twins. Kamui hadn't gone shinobi, but she remembered Kaede's genin years well enough; he'd died during them. Ayame and Fujio were both barely dipping into theirs, barely in front of her in terms of their education.

None, she thought, had had nearly as tough a beginning to genin life as she.

Then she shook the thought off.

It was true that they were moving fast, but then they had to be: soon, not soon to her but soon to the adults who had lived much longer, soon they would be miles away with the Daimyo looking over their shoulders and they had to be perfect, perfect, perfect, or as near as they could be.

And that didn't even mention that they had to be fully fledged members of the Konoha armed force.

(They had not touched on taijutsu, not even for a practice spar or two: Sensei made it clear that that was a domain strictly for the family, as with kekkai genkai. Still, Sakura had not expected for it to be so ignored. She was glad, really; it gave her body time to catch up. Nonetheless it was that, more than anything else, that made it clear they would not be expected to run a single out-of-village mission. Even genin teams full of Uchiha and Hyuuga—full of students far more restricted in their taijutsu techniques than Ino-Shika-Cho—learned at least something of combat beyond their families' instructions.

Chinmoku didn't.)

Summer bled into fall.

Sakura began to breathe again, felt less pressed by the pressure of all they needed to know as she got used to the burden.

Fujio's birthday passed, and several others began to near.

She ran into Aiko Utatane on one of her rare completely-free-days, and they spent the time eating and talking and shopping, reveling in talking with someone their gender—someone their age—someone _else._

As with the rush of family birthdays that happened in May, October had a similar issue: Aoi's and the twins' and their father' were all within a week of each other, and while none were home to celebrate everyone put aside a wrapped gift to give each of them the next time they came back, as they always did.

She finally ran into Yasuo, too: his genin team seemed to be the opposite of hers, constantly outside the walls, constantly on missions. He loved every minute.

The weather, for whatever reason, did not develop much of a bite until November, and it was only then that she managed to run into Bokuso when neither had to rush off before even a mere conversation could be had.

The chinmoku had been together when they'd run into the Aburame, so Juro had wasted no time in guiding them to the nearest Akimichi restaurant.

"So, how do you like your team?" Shin asked around a mouthful of meat. The chinmoku had already describe their Sensei, and done their compulsory ranting over their levels of exhaustion, so now it was Bokuso's turn.

"Fine." Bokuso said. Then, realizing that that was not enough, "noisy."

His genin team was composed of Eiji Sarutobi and Kegawa Inuzuka, his Sensei an Uchiha no one had recognized.

Sakura... well, the neither the Uchiha nor Sarutobi were really known for being composed, and if anything the Inuzuka were known for the exact opposite.

"That bad?" She asked.

Bokuso winced. "They are not... intentionally so."

"That bad." She said again, dropping the question entirely.

"Is your Sensei at least trying to deal with it?" Shin asked.

"He is... as irked, I believe, as I am, but he seems to think the issue will go away on its own."

"The issue?"

At this, Bokuso looked outright surprised, though his countenance quickly recomposed itself. "The Inuzuka are choosing a new leader as we speak."

Oh.

OH.

Oh.

That was... Sakura was very, very happy that there were no Inuzuka on her genin team.

The Inuzuka method of succession was a messy process. It wasn't even remotely hereditary, for one: while there were branches of Inuzuka any could easily contain the next leader. Then there was the issue that succession wasn't done by death, or by meeting a certain age, or anything like that.

Any time three Inuzuka each thought they would be better than the current leader, then they proclaimed this within their compound and the process began.

The actual specifics Sakura simply didn't know. The current Inuzuka leader had been in power for over a decade, since 22K, and the last challenge had happened when Sakura was two.

That said, a combination of rumors, mentions, outright explanations, and other methods had given Sakura at least some information about the Inuzuka:

They were matriarchal.

Their challenges were nearly tournament-like in the way they worked, and kept on going on until the winner had won at least double the number of fights they lost against each other challenger (and the current leader.)

There was no time limit.

During the challenge not only were Inuzuka more aggressive to outsiders, wary of those that might take advantage of their headless-ness, they were also aggressive amongst themselves, torn by loyalties to one challenger or another.

They were even more restless, as well: nights were spent watching hours-long fights instead of roughhousing themselves, and mornings were spent running around trying to figure out how to keep on when no single person could act as a leader until the challenge was over.

Inuzuka were emotional at the best of times, temperamental and unpredictable and wild.

When that was disturbed by something as major as the pack literally tearing itself apart to form anew?

Juro, from his seat next to the Aburame, patted his shoulder comfortingly.

"Look at the bright side:" Shin said, "this could go on for years."

Bokuso glared at him.


	16. Genin: Start of Genin, Part 3

On Saturday morning Sakura wasted no time hopping out of her bedroom window.

She'd awoken slightly late—the day before Sensei had caught Shin daydreaming and they'd all been punished well past dusk—but time didn't stop without her, so she dashed through the alleys that reticulated the Yamanaka compound, scraping by tight corners as she raced to her second cousin's house.

Taiki Yamanaka was short, gangly, and always slightly drunk. He'd worked for the clan, and only the clan, for the entirety of his shinobi career—had pissed off a few too many powerful shinobi to work anywhere else—and he was an expert in Yamanaka Taijutsu Style Eleven, Sakura's own chosen style.

"Oh? Is that... is that Sakura? Oh, no! I know! It's Sakura! Wait, no, that can't be right... you must be Sakura?"

He also thought he was hilarious.

"Actually I'm Sakura." Sakura said. She knew he did the same thing with nearly all of his students—the Yamanaka had several favorites when it came to names, which meant that one could always play the fun game of "which Yamanaka Arato are you referring to?" or "Was it the Yamanaka Hana who's more closely related to you or me that broke your vase?"

Of course, she happened to be the only Sakura he was teaching, and the only one that was nine years old besides, but...

"Ah, Sakura! Lovely to see you!"

Sakura bobbed in a short bow, and even before she'd finished his fist was already lashing out; Cousin Taiki only had time for humor and fighting, and he was most happy when he was doing both at once.

"Oh, come on!" He laughed. "Are you even trying?"

She jabbed forward again, but even as she did he'd already bent out of the way, grabbed her arm and hip, and corrected her form.

"I'd say that was good, but..."

Sakura had only begun with her kekkai genkai the week before, and it would be months before her particular inherited version of it—meant more to disorient than to retrieve information—would be remotely combat helpful.

The issue with this, of course, was that Yamanaka Style Eleven relied entirely on using the family technique.

She really, really wished she'd gone with Yamanaka Style Five.

Sakura huffed, rolling over as quickly as she could after Taiki knocked her over with a well-timed kick.

"I'm having fun! Are you having fun?"

As winter settled into the lands the excitement in Konohagakure grew: it was time for the Uchiha Art Festival.

They'd started the festival a mere two years after Konoha was founded, 30 years ago, and while it only lasted two days the festival was and had remained one of the most popular (and profitable) times of the year for Konoha.

Team chinmoku hadn't even had to ask for the days off—Sensei Mitokado had merely made them promise to examine the various styles of art on display.

"Hurry up!" Sakura said, wiggling unhappily next to Juro as she tried to ignore the chill from the open windows. They were at Shin's house, ignoring his screaming nephews, and waiting while their teammate scrambled through his morning to-dos.

At the Nara's kitchen table Shin's father sat, eating oatmeal and ignoring his grandchildren just as much as chinmoku were. He idly glanced at one as he crawled under the table in a bid to escape his brother and banged his head on a chair leg, but didn't bother getting up: children were resilient, after all.

"Shin!" Sakura shouted.

"I'm coming!"

One of his other nephews—he had three—scrambled on top of one of the kitchen cabinets and, leaning to the side, opened the cabinet that his grandmother stored the sweets in.

It was empty.

The nephew didn't like this, and flung himself at his grandfather, who huddled over his oatmeal protectively.

The other, middle, nephew, now eyed Sakura and Juro and, more importantly, the bento the latter was carrying.

"Shin!" Juro shouted again.

"Coming! Coming!"

"What's that?" Nephew #2 said, staring up at the now 12 year-old with interest. Sakura inched away a bit, and Juro glared at her.

"Nothing."

"Has it got sweets in it?"

"No."

"I don't believe you."

Shin finally slammed down the stairs, pulling his shirt on as he did. "Sorry! I didn't get to sleep until a couple hours ago!" He grabbed a hardboiled egg from the table. "Yuuto! Get away from Juro! Alright, let's go!"

Chinmoku fled the house, turning down the first street to the road out of the Nara Compound and to the Uchiha one.

The festival was loud, and not just in sound. It was noisy, to be sure— musicians played for money or applause on corners, a few game tents had been set up that people were now shouting into and out of, and there was the usual hustle and bustle of people crammed much closer together than usual to contend with too.

But it was also loud in other ways.

Sakura hadn't been stupid enough to turn on her sense for the festival, but even still the level of chakra in the air was so thick that she could feel it on her skin. Part of this was the quantity of the people, but the larger reason was because of the performers who stood on the various stages: the Uchiha were true experts at fire jutsu, and their expertise had allowed them to take the typically military skill and transform it into light displays, into fireworks, into beauty.

Which was nice, but _loud_.

The festival was loud in its smells, too—food stalls had been stuffed anywhere they could fit, and interesting scents of sugar and bread and alcohol and meats were constantly blowing in your face from whichever wind current was the closest.

Most of all, the festival was visually loud.

"Woah." Juro said, staring up at the giant chakra construct of a fire dragon that flew over their hands. "That's... big."

"Look!" Shin pointed ahead, where an Uchiha couple were doing some mix of a dance and ninjutsu battle on a clay stage.

Personally, Sakura was drawn to the display a bit further back— an Uchiha working with a water natured ninja to trap blasts of steam into huge bubbles, which floated up and over the crowd until they popped, drenching those below in tiny little droplets of water.

Anywhere you could turn there was more to see, more to do.

Sakura grinned. "Where to first?"

.

Sakura had always like Surrealism. It had a certain appeal to her, given everything, and while it was far from the most popular style she could still find one or two interesting surreal paintings even when there wasn't a festival going on.

Today there was an entire room in what was usually a house dedicated to the odd style.

Shin, Sakura, and Juro stood in front of one such painting, which depicted a koi pond slowly dripping down a sharp ledge onto a sleeping raccoon dog.

"I don't get it." Shin said,

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Sakura said.

Shin and Juro glanced at each other over her head. She ignored them, and moved to the next painting, which was of a girl with the face paint of a bride riding a rock as they sped away from the army depicted in the background.

"It's... very colorful?" Juro said.

"It is."

Behind them, outside the walls of the house, a voice shouted that it was nearly time for the fire breathing competition to begin and chinmoku immediately dashed out of the building—the advertisements for the competition promised minute-long displays made up of multi-colored flames, so all three of them knew they needed a good seat.

Sakura could barely keep her eyes open. She had tried to rub away the sleep from them before she had left the house, splashed her face with cold water, even did a quick warm-up while waiting for Juro and Shin to trudge down the street, and quite some time had passed since.

She still felt as if she was half a second away from learning if she could sleepwalk.

Juro was walking in the very front, physically the strongest of their team, and Shin and Sakura walked side by side behind him.

It was three in the morning.

The past several weeks had, more or less, become routine. They had to some extent become complacent in this, used to the steady schedule of their lives, and Sensei had taken no time to catch on.

He had decided, therefore, to... motivate them.

Specifically, he'd decided it was about time to teach them about pride, and the Capital's perception of it; chinmoku's was meaningless, theirs was golden.

"Lift me higher!" The tiny seven-year-old in the litter shouted. "I want to see over the fences!"

It was three in the morning.

He could see nothing.

They lifted him higher anyway, Sakura's grip straining at the unhealthy angle she was forced to keep it at.

"You! In the front! What's your name?"

Daiki Mitokado, nephew of Sensei Mitokado, was having the birthday of his life.

"Juro, good sir." Juro said.

Chinmoku's day was going notably worse.

"I don't like that name!" Daiki said. "It's stupid!"

They hadn't even been warned in advance—they'd arrived at a quarter to midnight, as ordered, only to watch Sensei Mitokado carry a sleepy eyed Daiki all the way to their training ground.

"For your birthday," he'd told his nephew, "you get to pretend to be the worst kind of rich snobby Capital noble, and these three get to be your servants. Have fun."

"Whoever named you that was stupid!"

When the night had begun Daiki had been constantly looking towards his uncle, constantly double checking that what he was doing and saying was actually okay.

By now he didn't bother.

"Hey, I want more sweets! Get me some more sweets!"

Shin and Sakura glared at each other. Sakura, unfortunately, had fulfilled his last request (orange juice) so that meant she was forced to bear the entire back weight of the litter while Shin ran off, free for at least a little while.

"Sing me a song!"

"Which song would you like, young sir?" Juro said. Anything that might have even been an imitation of pride had left his demeanor hours ago.

"Um..." Daiki said, thinking hard.

The worst part, in Sakura's mind, was that this clearly was going to be an all-day thing. Sensei wanted to push them to the limits, wanted to force them to put up with everything, before actually telling them what they were allowed to say no to.

Even assuming the seven-year-old napped or, ideally, fell asleep early because of the early wake-up call, that was still a full day of hell.

"You pick something." Daiki decided. "I'll decide if I like it."

Shin wasn't back yet. It had only been a few seconds, but Sakura hated him already. Her shoulders strained under the weight, but at least they had almost completed the lap of the city that Daiki had requested.

Juro huffed, less because he wanted to and more because the weight was getting to him as well, then began singing a short nursery rhyme.

"No! I want a grown-up song."

Juro tried a different song, one of the older tunes that everyone knew.

"That's a grandpa song! Sing a new one, one I haven't heard before."

Sakura felt very, very sorry for Juro.

She did not speak up.

Juro tried to make up a song. He got three stanzas in before Daiki decided it was the worst of them yet. "You should take singing lessons, you're that bad!" Daiki said. Then, "where's my sweets? It's my birthday, you know, and as a noble my birthday wishes matter more than anything else!"

Sakura's seventh birthday had included a party in the evening and her favorite foods for breakfast that morning.

This felt a bit excessive.

By the afternoon chinmoku were well and truly worn out. Daiki had been a creative little snit, and every time they'd thought he'd run out of ideas they'd been proven wrong.

Thankfully, blessedly, he'd decided he was tired, so Sensei Mitokado had let them take him home so that he could have a nap before dinner.

That still left the rest of the day, unfortunately, to new kinds of torture.

"No, too low." Sensei said, jabbing Shin in the chest to jerk him up to the right height. "Ten times." Shin sighed subvocally but began practicing the ideal bow to a diplomat from Grass in the Daimyo's Court ten times as ordered.

"...Juro. Please bow to the Daimyo's fourth favorite mistress, who is wearing a green dress, in the morning, outside a shrine."

Sensei liked doing that—including facts which might or might not be relevant so that you had to parse out what actually mattered while already beginning the bow.

"No." Sensei said, grabbing Juro's head so it was more level to the ground. "You—" He turned, and Sakura did with him.

A man stood at the front of the training ground. When he knew he had been noticed, he gestured.

Sensei let go off Juro's head.

Chinmoku stood and watched, but they couldn't hear anything.

It didn't look good.

Sakura worried—what if this was the next War? It was irrational, of course—she could think of hundreds more likely ways she'd find out about the war—but the thought wouldn't go away.

Then, eying the expression of the messenger, a new thought popper into her head: what if another one of her siblings had died?

She hadn't seen Aoi in years. Akina and Arato had also not popped by any time recently, and the last time Akina had come alone, and hadn't been up for saying much besides. And her father—he hadn't been home since her fourth year.

What if—what if—what if—

Sensei nodded, then turned towards them.

Sakura's breath caught in her throat.

His expression was, as always, inscrutable, but she knew.

Her blood pounded in her ears.

Someone was dead.

Who was it?

Mom?

Dad?

Ren?

Sayuri?

Sensei began walking towards them.

Aoi?

Akina?

Arato?

She felt faint of breath.

Ayame?

Fujio?

Sensei stopped, then turned.

"We need to talk." He said.

"Okay." Juro responded.

Sensei put his hand on Juro's shoulder, and they walked to the side.

Shin and Sakura stared at each other.

Sensei murmured something.

Juro choked on a sob.

Zoro Akimichi had been killed.


	17. Genin: Start of Genin, Part 4

After she'd finished washing and dressing, Sakura found herself in front of the mirror nailed on the wall to the right of the door to the backyard. (Sakura had always hated that it was situated there—it was close enough to the outdoors to be regularly covered in pollen, in dust, which meant it had to be cleaned more often than if it had been positioned more out of the way, upstairs or something. But kaa-san said that visitors wouldn't see it if it were upstairs, and that was apparently its purpose.)

She'd never made much of a habit of it, of examining herself in great detail rather than passingly, but she figured she had a few minutes to spare. She was nine, now, but she still looked the same as she had when she was eight; short, with lilac eyes, blond hair, and irregular bruises from training scattering her visible skin.

All of her family had been born blond, but only half stayed that way: herself, Ren, Sayuri, Ayame, Fujio, and Kohana had kept their mother's locks, while the rest had darkened gradually into some amalgam of both parents.

Her hair was one of the few which had never darkened at all.

Sakura didn't know why she was thinking of this, why she was doing this, why hair was a concern to her at all.

She kept staring in the mirror.

Her hair was back in the trademark ponytail of her family. The only one who didn't have one, right now at least, was Fujio, and that was only because his had been cut off during a mission—he was already in the process of growing it back.

Besides the bruises she had a nick just above her right eye from a spar one week before. Shin had been punished for that, the cut far too close to her eye for comfort.

She kept on staring.

She was alive.

Wasn't that an odd thought?

That life itself existed, continued to exist, perpetuated to the point of sapience...

And she was one of the many who was currently _alive_ , currently breathing and moving and thinking like so many others.

And Zoro Akimichi wasn't.

The image in the mirror did not change.

The house was empty.

Kaa-san had changed her work hours last year. Himari went to Ren's during the day and helped with his kids—she had seizures sometimes, so she could never be left alone, but that didn't mean she could just sit around and do nothing. Fujio and Ayame were both with their teams. Training would be a bit hard for them, today, but they hadn't even hesitated in walking past the kitchen without grabbing anything to eat.

She'd probably find that more heartwarming later.

Even Kohana was gone, also breakfast-less but unable to find a substitute for her shift in time to spend the day with Sakura. Sakura hadn't asked her too, of course, but Kohana had been incredibly sorry nonetheless.

Everyone else was gone on missions, hadn't been around in weeks at least, so Sakura was alone in her house staring at a mirror she'd never paid much attention to and marveling at the utter absurdity of the mere existence of life.

Outside her window two boys began shouting ('Gross! Gross! Keep that away from me!') and she finally forced herself to snap out of her reverie.

Besides the walk to the Academy and the Nara compound the walk to the Akimichi compound was the trip she made most often in life.

Nothing much was different during the walk that day. A few new tenements had been built, blocking the sun with their height, but they'd been built over the course of weeks; she'd already seen them. People rushed to and fro and children played and merchants sold their wares.

Most she recognized. The few she didn't blended in perfectly.

Nothing stood out.

Nothing was different

It was late winter, cold and dry, the kind of temperature that cracked your lips and made your cheeks so red they hurt.

Around her most people were bundled up, wrapped in as many layers as they could get around themselves. Some of the ninja were more freely dressed—their frequent movement made it less necessary, and even if they had to stand still for a long time they could just rely on pumping their chakra to stay comfortable.

Sakura looked far more like the latter than the former, but she didn't run.

She didn't use her chakra either; doing so was considered rude while mourning.

She shivered instead.

As she neared the Akimichi compound most sounds fell away. She could hear the call of the Akimichi wailers—unlike the Yamanaka, who mourned in silence—and their cries seemed to block out all of the others.

It probably did, to a fashion. Everyone knew what their wails meant, and whispered or moved away from the stark white walls of the compound as a sign of respect.

Within the compound the sound was even louder; hundreds of voices crying out.

Their last funeral had been only one month ago—a little girl who had caught the flu too soon after having had the pox.

The Yamanaka, who were nearly as large, had managed to avoid a funeral for almost four months.

The Nara streak had ended last week, with one of their elders.

Death, with populations as large as theirs, were common enough occurrences.

That didn't make them any easier, any less important, any less painful to those they directly affected.

Sakura had only met Zoro three, maybe four times. Her impression of him had been positive, but fleeting—he had made little impression, his personality not unusual enough to leave more than a passing mark.

She knew, too, that he hadn't been that close to Juro. He'd been too old when the youngest was born, too far into having his own life and, because he was neither the first nor the second born, not tied up as much in his role as older brother as Ichiro, as Ren. Even Kaede, sweet Kaede, had spent more time with Sakura than Zoro had Juro, despite his time already off the earth.

The pain of her brother's death still lingered.

The pain of Juro's brothers' deaths—the second and fifth, and now the third—would linger too.

She couldn't imagine his pain.

.

Sometimes, when most of the world had fallen asleep and the only noises left were from those who wouldn't or couldn't join their brethren in slumber, Sakura would sneak out of her window.

The Yamanaka Compound was located in the middle of everything, piled in on every side by buildings and parks and training grounds. The Akimichi were, if anything, even worse off—their compound was located smack in the middle of blocks full of apartment buildings, with only a few scant scatterings of trees to break up the monotony.

The Nara, on the other hand, were located at the very edge, near the walls. Their lands were piled high with trees and wildlife instead of wood and clay, and you could easily get lost within the compound and forget the city it was a part of.

This made middle-of-the-night trips to the compound a bit inconvenient, both in terms of distance and routing, but Sakura still made the trek at least once a month.

Usually she ended up in Shin's room alone.

He would be awake (he was always awake) but something during the day would warn her subconsciously (if it were conscious she'd have just planned out spending the night in the daytime) that he wasn't doing well, that he'd gone without slumber for too long.

She would climb into his bed, wrap her tiny arms around his body, and murmur in a low voice about nothing at all.

He'd fall asleep, usually, about three or so hours after she'd arrived, and the next day she would go to the Academy with bags under his eyes and he'd go with more energy then he'd had at any point that month.

Sometimes, when both Sakura' and Juro's radars picked up the same signs, they'd all end up crammed inside his tiny bed at two in the morning, wrestling for any available space while Shin repeated over and over that they didn't have to come and they threatened over and over to tell his mom on him if he didn't shut up and pass out.

The first time she had met Zoro had been after one of those nights, when his mother had sent him to collect Juro for one reason or another.

He'd been tall, and round, and polite, and... and...

She really hadn't noticed anything else.

He'd teased Juro, she remembered, about how he kept on ending up in beds that weren't his. Juro hadn't gotten the joke, and then Zoro had apologized—he'd been thinking of Kuro, not Juro—the former apparently had a habit of sleep walking.

She tried desperately to think of some other, deeper, memory of Zoro, some reasonable explanation for why his death was hitting her so hard, but there was none.

He was a nobody to her, just one of the many people of Konoha that she irregularly interacted with.

He'd made no special mark on her, she hadn't thought of him with fondness prior to his death—hadn't thought of him at all, in fact.

And yet...

It wasn't just that he was an Akimichi, either.

She knew other Akimichi who had died, had spoken to some of them more than even Zoro, and she'd felt sorry on their deaths, but not so much that she found herself unable to think clearly, unable to smile.

She shuffled to the back of the mourning crowd, next to Shin.

He looked less affected than she did, but not by much, and it might've just been because he always looked exhausted to begin with.

Around them Akimichi wails continued to fill the air, their every action demanding recognition for their pain, for the sorrow Zoro's death had brought.

Shin and Sakura stayed silent.

She wasn't sure if it was clan tradition—the Yamanaka mourned silently, and the Nara mourned privately, in one-on-one interactions—but neither seemed to be capable of opening their mouths and screaming their pain out to the world.

A baby was crying nearby.

A little girl asked her mother why they hadn't had breakfast.

A dog whimpered, covering its ears from its perch on someone's front stoop.

Sakura could see Juro at the very front with five of his remaining six brothers and both of his parents.

They were screaming, wrestling back and forth without chakra, without strength, simply expelling their emotions in the most physical way they were able.

The Nara talked through the pain of death. The Yamanaka did that too, as did the Akimichi, but only after several days had passed.

The Akimichi, on the day of the funeral, didn't really talk at all.

Even the Yamanaka talked more, said the words which freed the soul and brought it to peace.

The Akimichi did not believe words did anything, so they didn't waste their time with any.

Instead the day was given to emotion, to grief, to the sort of unfeeling feeling that Sakura could never pull off.

She'd spend the day here, in the compound.

She'd help where she could—watch after babies, bring water to those who looked thirsty—but there was little else she could do.

Little else anyone could do.

Zoro was dead.

Nothing could change that. Nothing would change that.

When Kaede died she'd been wrapped up in her grief, in her overwhelming misery at the death of her brother.

Now she was sad, she was mourning, but it was less personal.

Then, when Kaede died, her sadness had carried her through the hours and days after his death, had gifted her with the inability to think of anything else.

Now Sakura found herself desperate for a distraction, for a purpose, for anything that might call away from the finality of the death of a man she both did and didn't know.

.

He looked like Juro.

That's what it was, wasn't it?

He looked like Juro, so Sakura kept imagining her teammate, her lifelong soul brother in his blood brother's place.

Kept imagining standing in the shoes of the scarred Yamanaka at the front of the crowd, wrestling with the very same brothers.

Death was final.

Even Arden couldn't change that—all she'd done, however accidentally, was delay her own by several months.

One day Juro _would_ die.

One day they all would.

She remembered the first Akimichi funeral she'd ever been too—the death of her dad's teammate's father.

He'd been old, very old, when he'd died.

His family, his friends, those he had spent decades working with had still done much the same as Juro's family; everyone—from small little three year-olds, who couldn't even move a potted plant, to current jonin troop leaders, who could lift a house with barely a sweat, to old decrepit retirees, whose primes had long since passed and with them most of their strength—everyone had shoved at each other, screamed in the faces of one another, wordlessly demanded answers, demanded relief, demanded a way to overcome.

She'd found it weird at the time, discomfiting and alien and loud.

Now she couldn't imagine a more visceral way of mourning.

She didn't know if, should Juro die before her, she'd be capable of wearing her emotions on her sleeves as she was meant to do.

She didn't know if she'd want to, even if she could.

She hated this.

Hated every revelation she had, hated every memory this funeral brought to the surface, hated every bit of trying to make sense of the world she'd been forced to do.

Right now she was supposed to be thinking about proper bows, and tea ceremonies, and filing systems, and legal doubletalk.

She was not supposed to be thinking about whether or not it was fair to grieve someone who you only mourned because they reminded you of someone else. She was not supposed to be thinking about death, its finality, and the absolute certainty that everyone she could see would be dead within the century. She was not supposed to be thinking about why the Yamanaka mourned differently than the Akimichi, which one was better, and if she was even capable of mourning Juro as he'd want to be mourned.

For a second she hated Zoro.

The second passed.

For a second she hated herself.

The second passed.

Someone gestured for water and she dashed off to get it.

Later, much later, she'd try to decide how to deal with the prospective deaths of her teammates. For now she'd bury herself, as much as possible, in the aid of others and try to ignore, for a little while longer, the hopelessness of the endeavor.


	18. Genin: The Capital, Part 1

The delegation left for the Capital on a Saturday. There was a short going away ceremony that took place on the steps of the administrative building where the Hokage officially granted any new emissaries the right to speak on his behalf and made a little speech about the importance of the relationship between himself and the Daimyo, and then they were off.

They did not, as most other mission-going ninjas did, depart from the village at a breakneck pace, aiming to get to their destination as quickly as possible to be as efficient as possible for the Hokage.

The delegation was composed of six wagons, three jonin (including one of the Capital emissaries and their Sensei, who wasn't technically an emissary but was in charge of the delegation), five chunin (Diplomacy Department, the lot of them), and team Chinmoku (the assistants.)

The pace wasn't necessarily slow—they certainly moved faster than the merchant caravans they passed, and the horses that they picked up a mile or so outside the walls helped the speed of the wagons tremendously—but it was more important to look 'official', to look 'proper', to look 'good' than to get there.

Sakura, Juro, and Shin walked by the side of every other wagon. They had, in the previous week, been made to memorize the location of everything that was packed into them (nothing in the first, last or fourth; they were meant as decoys and to sleep. Gifts and the like in the second—the most expensive, but least valuable of the wagons. The third contained restocks of official waxes and other office supplies as well as the entirety of the paperwork. Number five contained several back-ups and any non-paperwork-related supplies.

Beyond that there wasn't much to do. They were clean, dressed appropriately, and kept pace easily—chakra wasn't even necessary, really, especially because they would be stopping every few hours for a meal and a rest.

The whole purpose of this trip wasn't to get there, it was to be seen, and their every action implied that either overtly or surreptitiously.

They followed the main (only) road to and from Konoha, so it took them some time to leave the farmland and truly enter the heart of the woods. Once they did everyone relaxed, the pace picked up, and the older shinobi began to mutter to one another, comfortable in the density of the trees.

Sakura, too far from anyone to talk, kept running.

She was first in line—the sensor, the team leader, and the one who least excelled in long range combat.

Juro was next, several meters behind her. Medics were important, never to be put closest to the unknown, and he was their only one anyway—Diplomacy and Medicine were apparently rarely chosen together as specialties.

Then Shin. His shadows had fairly good range, all things considered, and his aim was best with the various weapons he was currently testing out. He was in the back.

Sensei called out for some tea. Juro disappeared into wagon five—she pulsed out her sense to be sure.

She was to use the sense every fifteen minutes or so. That was currently the most frequently she could go if she wanted to keep the ability to do so indefinitely; if this trip was less than thirty minutes, then she'd be able to check the surroundings about every ten or fifteen seconds, pulsing like a wave. Constant chakra use was still too draining, though—ideally, by the end of the year, she'd be able to manage fifteen minutes of it, but that would take time.

She knew that Shin had similar issues with his shadow use, and similar instructions to practice with it for the duration of the trip; one of the chunin—an Uchiha, who sat in wagon 1—was the sensor actually in charge of keeping track of their surroundings.

They arrived at the first true village by evening, and (because it was the proper thing to do) rooms were booked at the most prominent inn.

Sakura was placed with two of the five chunin—women and men who weren't married didn't share rooms outside of Konohagakure. Both the emissary (Daiki Sarutobi) and Sensei got their own rooms, and the other three chunin shared with the last jonin. Juro and Shin were stuck as 'wagon guards' for the night— the next night it would be Sakura and one of the chunin.

The trip would not be a long one, but it would be quite boring.

.

"Halt!"

Samurai.

Sakura had never seen any in person before—Sensei Mitokado had shown them the garments they wore, and other identifying characteristics—but he—and the two additional samurai who stood nearby—were just as depicted.

Behind them the city sprouted, nearly radiant in the afternoon light. It was built, mostly, over a hill, and the Daimyo's palace, a towering residence with dark green roofs which easily dwarfed over all of the four-story or lower buildings around it, was placed at the very top.

The road between the front gate and the palace was fairly straightforward, and bracketed on either side by primarily commercial buildings, and though Sakura couldn't see any poorly kept houses she knew it was not because they did not exist: here, as in Konohagakure, they were kept off the main roads, out of sight.

Beyond that, however, the two communities seemed to have more differences than similarities.

There were more walls here, for one, and unlike Konoha they weren't built as a singular flat-surfaced circle. Instead straight walls made up of grey stones outlined the city in sharp corners and infrequent outcroppings. Inside, from what she could see, it was more of the same—older walls, built when the city was smaller, still crossed all over the lands inside. Every once in a while, her Sensei had explained, they would admit that there was too much growth outside the current walls—too many houses, commercial establishments, lives—so new ones would be built, as far out as the current Daimyo could make them, and the now inner-walled establishments would be charged increased taxes for the privilege.

The walls in place right now were older than the whole of Konohagakure, and they were the newest set the city had.

Sensei and Emissary Sarutobi were still talking with the samurai. It didn't seem to be a particularly welcoming conversation, but then it didn't seem particularly hostile either. The Samurai stood almost a full head taller than Sensei, but Sensei's blank face seemed to be holding its own. She couldn't tell what they were talking about, but each word seemed chosen with care, slow as grass growing as everyone around them did their best to keep from twitching.

Sakura stood in place.

It took nearly half an hour for them to move again, half an hour of low murmured voices, of papers being passed back and forth, of gestures and bows.

Neither party seemed to find this unusual, so though it chafed, and it felt unnatural, Sakura tried to feel like nothing was wrong. ( _Nothing was wrong_ , too, Sensei had warned them of this very step. But it didn't feel right, not when coming from Konoha where proficiency was a basic tenet of a ninja's life. It felt very, very wrong.)

They were gestured in.

One of the chunin—a Nara—turned the first wagon out of the way, allowing the second one—the one with the gifts—to pass through first.

They all moved forward.

The gift wagon went straight to the Palace. The rest, including them, turned toward a building nearby.

The innards of the city were, again, very different from Konohagakure.

Here horses roamed freely.

Here there was shit in the streets, here there were no trees except those locked in by the fences of homes, here the city as a whole was four or five times as large as Konoha—and that was within the walls.

In Konoha merchants sold their goods on street corners, out of little carts, even on the main roads. Here, at least from what she could see, business was only done behind doors.

There was also... more.

Konoha was built off of clans, so much of its innards were enclosed by the fences of the compounds. Residences, restaurants, stores and blacksmiths and everything else, were built around those massive compounds. In Konoha there were very few building requirements beyond that—the Administrative building was still the tallest, but not by much, and because of that it could only be seen at the gates due to the straightness of the main street. Instead was the Hokage's heads, carved into a mountain which sat entirely outside the walls, that hovered over everything.

Here buildings couldn't be built that tall, so instead they sprawled wide. There didn't seem to be compounds, but many of the houses were themselves larger, wider than any non-government building she'd ever before seen.

So there were no compounds, but there was if anything a clearer division amongst the residents: there were those that lived in the miniature palaces they passed, those that dined at the restaurants and purchased the beautiful pottery for sale behind monstrously sized panes of glass, and then there were those that rushed by just out of sight, who wore worn clothing and carted the trash in the alleys and cleaned up after the horses and went about their work seemingly unnoticed by those dressed in silks and finery.

It was odd, Sakura thought, and not just because of the social differences.

If anything, she found the ignorance far more telling, far harder to understand.

In Konoha even those children that did not end up as ninja didn't ignore their surroundings. She hadn't even considered that it might have something to do with being a shinobi—to her it had just been a thing that the people of her world _did_.

Arden hadn't.

That much was clear from her memories—her attention was only focused on a few things at once; she could pass by dozens of faces and not notice a single one, could go to school and not realize until she went to grab her notebook that she'd forgotten to zip her backpack that morning.

Sakura had, by then, realized that she and Arden were not the same species, were both sapient and nearly identical in visible form but oh-so-different below the surface.

She'd put Arden's inattention down to that, down to a different evolutionary path.

In Konoha, after all, it was custom to know what was going on around you, it was just considered 'what was done'.

In the Capital it took ten, maybe twenty seconds to figure out that this was not the case here.

Even the samurai did not dart their eyes to take in everybody surrounding them, moving around them. She was sure that if she asked them, later, they wouldn't be able to recognize a single face from the crowd.

A boy (older than her, almost an adult) tripped over a piece of stone that stood out from the road, and went on his day as if this were not a sign of something greatly wrong, as if not knowing where you were about to step was okay.

She hadn't seen a child older than six ever get tripped by nothing, especially if they were just walking down the street, not running or playing or holding so much that they couldn't see the road in front of them.

It was disturbing.

Another little girl paused in front of a silk shop, and the two women she had been walking with continued on, apparently completely unaware that the small one had fallen behind. Several seconds later she looked up, jerking around desperately before catching sight of the two women turning down a side street. She chased after them, and all three went out of sight.

Again and again Sakura saw people literally paying no attention to the world around them. Again and again she saw that it wasn't a case of simple dismissal of that which was categorized as unimportant (everyone did that, at least) but a case of not noticing those things in the first place, of devoting so little brainpower to one's senses that you may as well have been half blind.

The wagons came to a halt. They had arrived at the building.

Sakura decided, very firmly, that she didn't like this city.

.

It didn't take long to settle in.

That part was kind of surprising, actually—she knew they'd begin work immediately, of course, but she'd thought there would be some time where they weren't working at peak efficiency, where they were still figuring out how to not only do things, but do things right.

Instead she, Juro, and Shin had ended their first day collapsed onto their shared futon well past midnight, having spent the entirety of the day rushing around and putting things everywhere they needed to be, setting up materials and jotting down short summaries of the thirty- to eighty-minute long speeches that had happened between the fall session and now.

Day two began at dawn. Juro rushed around as their gopher, keeping everyone supplied and informed about what everyone else was doing. Shin and Sakura, given their talent at understanding code, were more or less entirely in charge of summarizing any new information. The chunin were taking the already mapped out plans of how they wanted the session to go and tweaking them, adjusting as new information was taken in and understood.

Sensei and Emissary Sarutobi disappeared to the palace at ten every morning, after a full three or four hours briefing and being briefed, and Sakura hadn't yet managed to be awake before they came home. The other jonin—she still hadn't figured out his purpose—had disappeared the first day and had yet to come back.

The pace was far, far worse than she could have imagined. She barely took in what she had read—there was no time. Instead she became the mistress of taking a full report on rice crops and summarizing it in three sentences, she not only utilized her already memorized shorthand but also learned how to write while reading, paying so little attention to what her hand was doing that she was shocked when she read it back later and found it coherent. The pace with which they had to summarize allowed for nothing else.

Shin, usually, worked across from her at one of the tables.

Her talent with languages was better, so she was mostly given the (frequently illicitly obtained) reports in other languages, in the language of Grass and Earth and Wind. Shin, on the other hand, took on the lion's share of the records from within the borders of the Land of Fire; he was far more capable than her in reading the language under the language, the two having had flipped in their clan expectations well before they even met.

They worked.

Most of the information, for one reason or another, couldn't leave the city, so once a day the chunin also took all new summarized information and re-summarized it, compressing the words into a page to be sent to their Hokage as part of a full write-up.

Chinmoku was given little time to eat, sleep, and exercise, and no time for anything else. The days were spent trying desperately to catch up with all of the new paperwork before the new session began, with the jonin constantly away reforming connections, flattering important officials and attempting to smooth down any feathers that might have been ruffled in the last session.

Every evening, well after any respectable person would be asleep, plans were marked out between the vested members, outlined and adjusted and mixed and reforged.

It was a full week before Sakura actually entered the Palace.

The court session would only begin the next week, would take place officially in the Daimyo's court, a single large room that would swell with courtiers, dignitaries, emissaries, each of them dressed so properly and appropriately that they could barely move.

Court custom was the very definition of stifling, and Sakura was very happy she was not to be the aide accompanying Sensei and Emissary Sarutobi inside.

Still, she was (after being appropriately dressed) shown inside and around the room, already bedecked in fantastic works of art on nearly every wall and even absurdly complex rugs covering the surface of the floor.

Then she was shown to a side room.

The court operated... oddly, if you wanted her honest take on the matter.

Officially, of course, and in reality, the Daimyo was the lawgiver of the people. The only others allowed the right were clans within their clans and Konoha within the shinobi population (and those that lived with the shinobi—the village wouldn't have gotten off the ground otherwise); even the Samurai were wholly subservient; they could make regulations, not laws.

Reality, as usual, was more complicated.

The reality went something like this: the courtiers made up the bulk of the legislative force, having earned their roles by virtue of their family and prospered in them enough to keep their place in the room. Next came the emissaries; Konoha had three, Sarutobi, Shimura, and Saito, and the other great nations (and the hidden nations which resided inside) would each send one of their own for a period of about a week at the beginning of the session, to push their own agendas.

Then there was the Delegate. In the case of this session, Konoha's was Sensei. Within their nations the emissaries were supposed to act as constant representatives, to ingratiate themselves with the court permanently. They were, in effect, more information distributors than anything else. It was the delegation—it was Sensei Mitokado—who actually represented Konoha's interest in a legislative sense. The Land of Fire's Daimyo also welcomed delegates from the five major provinces of its region, as well as the Fire Temple, which ran independently of Konohagakure and (according to Sensei) were primarily symbolical, refusing to pass judgment on any possible law unless it directly, significantly, and negatively impacted them.

(This was rarely done, because the monks, more than anyone else, were seen as true representatives of the divine, and for all that science was beginning to understand the surrounding world it would never be able to understand the kami, much less how to cope with their often capricious behavior.)

It was the delegates and the courtiers that actually went through the trouble of slogging through the information, and opinions, and cost/benefit analyses and decided what law should be put in place.

Often the Diamyo would simply say "I want x to happen", and by the end of the session it would be done, with him having no more understanding of the situation than he had at the beginning.

It was him through whom every law had power, yes, but he was merely the focal point; if he died, and someone propped a simulacrum in his place, little would change.

All of that meant that the giant room—the court—was insufficient.

Tiny rooms were therefore built on both long walls, ten crammed together on either side. The provinces had one each, as did Konoha (the Fire Temple had apparently politely declined an offer of their own) and the other fourteen were reserved for whichever courtiers happened to be most powerful at the moment.

She would spend the days, once court had started, sitting in Konoha's, blocked from sight by rice paper walls and solely devoted to keeping track of the goings on she could hear. Juro would sit beside her, his role to take her notes and add in references and cross-references and footnotes. The chunin—all five of them—would be acting entirely outside the court, making deals with the individual courtiers and their families. Within the court Shin would walk constantly behind Sensei, carrying with him every document which might need to be displayed and quietly memorizing all that he could so that Sensei could focus on maintaining alliances, on getting the best deal for Konoha possible.

For now, though, they were merely preparing.

Chinmoku was in the Palace for about ten minutes at most. There was too much work to be done, too many reports to be condensed, too much new information being brought in for any more time to be wasted.

Life in the Capital seemed to be a constant slog of responsibilities and deadlines, without even the illusion of action to alleviate the boredom of the admittedly necessary tasks.

Sakura could now see why diplomacy was such an unpopular career choice.


	19. Genin: The Capital, Part 2

While the Daimyos of the various lands rarely if ever stepped out of their borders, once in a season two emissaries (one from the Daimyo, the other from the Kage) from each of the Great Nations as well as quite a few of the smaller ones would go to visit another Great Nation.

In the summer it was Lightning's turn to host, in the fall Earth's, the winter was saved for the desert land of Wind, and Fire got the Spring. Water didn't want foreigners in its governance even during peace time, so they only sent emissaries.

Funnily enough, it was theirs that were the first to arrive.

They did not say much.

According to Sensei, they never did.

Sakura noted down their arrival nonetheless, and beside her Juro began pulling out their documents regarding Water, hoping to find the biographies of the possible emissaries located somewhere inside to match with the newly revealed names.

After Water came Wind, and Sakura listened with interest from the small room next to the court as Fire's closest allies reintroduced themselves. Throughout the Land of Fire names of plants and the like were most popular, but in Wind their children tended to be named after entertainment—games, and dance, and fun—or after weaponry. Their emissaries, Odoriko Kasui from the Daimyo and Toreda Fupu from Suna didn't seem to be bucking that trend, and Sakura found it kind of funny; if she was living in the middle of a desert, she rather thought she'd want to name her child after something living, but then she got to stare at living things every day.

Wind had only just arrived when the next emissaries, the team from Lightning, were announced, which made Juro audibly whimper. He certainly had the hardest job right now, while Sakura's transcript was fairly straightforward to do at the beginning but would become more difficult to keep up with throughout.

Still, Lightning's arrival wasn't exactly something she was pleased about either.

Sakura was very, very happy the rice paper protected her from sight.

Only Shin was in a position to be seen, and even then he (as an aide) was not going to be introduced. Both Juro and Sakura had been kept in the smaller room for just that reason—Yamanaka eyes and hair were too distinctive, and the average ninja was either rail thin or built of muscle; anything else was a clear sign of a kekkai genkai.

The Nara, at least, weren't visibly that unique. They were all generally brown eyed and dark haired, and they tended towards thinner frames; they could exercise for years, be able to bench press mountains, and still look like they'd run out of breath fetching firewood. Sakura looked a bit like that herself, right now, but that was more due to her age than anything else—the Yamanaka as a whole tended to have body types somewhere in the middle.

Regardless, the hope was that Shin—who looked vaguely like he could be from anywhere in the Fire Nation—would not entice Lightning into doing anything stupid, into starting another war when the wounds from the last one were only just beginning to scar. The act of hiding their more noticeable kekkai genkai likely did little if anything to help in that venture, but it still felt better than doing nothing at all.

Lightning was followed by the final emissaries to arrive, the team from Earth.

Introductions were quick and to the point.

Emissaries from the smaller nations—Grass, Hot Water, Rice, Whirlpool—had come in between the larger ones, and Sakura had made sure to note down their presence and statements, as was her duty, but they, and everybody else, knew that they were nothing compared to the heavy hitters; they were there as a courtesy, little else (with the possible exception of Uzu—Konoha had pushed really hard for them to be considered one of the great villages, and while the effort had failed the bond remained strong enough that they still had as much of a say as any great nation in the politics of Fire.)

The emissaries from the other nations would only stay for one week, and court would only be held for five of those days, so after Earth had settled in it took little time for the court to begin in full.

.

The court session, of course, had to begin with speeches.

The first was from one of the many courtiers (apparently the current favorite), lasted about ten minutes, and could be boiled down to 'peace good, war bad'. Sakura wrote that in the margin of the transcript.

The next was from the Daimyo himself, his quarterly formal address on The State of the Nation.

It could be boiled down to 'peace and prosperity good, war and anarchy bad'. She wrote that in the margin too.

Then came introductions, with everyone but the servants and aides having to stand in turn to be recognized and, if it was their first time in court, formally introduced.

Then, finally, came the actual work.

Wind wanted a better tariff agreement.

The rest of the day was spent trying to narrow down what, exactly, they wanted to be changed, though nothing would actually be cemented until the final days. The talks were boring, long, spoke around requests instead of directly asking for anything, and spent at least half an hour accomplishing what could have been done in a sentence. At least that would make the day's summaries easier.

It was the second day when things began to become interesting (which, in the context of diplomacy, was never a good thing.)

It was Iwa (another fantastic sign, not at all stressful) that made it so.

"And do you have any evidence?" Sensei asked, butting in (quite rudely, but the rudeness would be excused by those that mattered.)

"And what evidence would you like me to give?" The Iwa emissary simpered. "You would simply explain away any I tried to bring forward."

"Any." Sensei said, not backing down.

Iwa, in traditional Earth fashion, had accused Uzushiogakure of planting spies in their village. Ignoring that spies were an assumed part of life, ignoring that Uzushiogakure had actually found _Iwa's_ spies in 25 K, a mere four years ago, there was still the issue that Iwa and Uzu were at _literally opposite sides_ of the earth.

What, exactly, was Iwa's deal?

"While I cannot provide you with bodies—it is unfortunately true that Uzushiogakure uses seals on their spies to ensure the complete disintegration of their bodies if caught—" (the Uzu emissary did not agree, and did not agree quite loudly, so the Iwa emissary raised her voice) "— _if caught_ —we can assure you, from one Great Nation to another, that this is true."

Sakura really, really didn't like this.

Iwa knew this wasn't going to work—there was absolutely no reason it should—so the important question was why they were doing it at all.

In past sessions, Sakura knew, Iwa had focused primarily on control of many of the more minor nations and their economies, accusing Fire and Konoha (not entirely incorrectly) of mercantilist policies and having puppet states. Its focus on Uzu was new, and worrying.

In the margin of the transcript Sakura made a note to ask Shin about the faces of the other emissaries—while Uzu', Konoha', and Fire's responses were predictable, it was possible Iwa was attempting to fish for support from other nations to weaken Fire or Uzu in some way.

The Uzu emissary was speaking now, denying the claims of disintegration seals (that was a new one, Sakura would admit. She hadn't heard of it before, but then Konoha and Fire as a whole was very pro-Whirlpool.) They went on to deny the use of spies—a statement which was unlikely to be true to begin with, and even more so after Iwa was caught spying on them—and reminding the others of the many, many problems with baseless accusations.

While Sakura couldn't see anything through the rice paper walls, as far as she could tell most non-Fire agreed.

The end of day briefing was not fun.

The jounin and chunin paced, upset and not knowing what to do, and made plans to meet with several families, to meet with the Whirlpool emissaries and, ideally, with the Daimyo himself.

While nothing got resolved in the briefing, one of the chunin was sent to run back to the Kage that night, instead of the end of the week as planned—the unusual behavior far too much a sign of _something_ to ignore.

The next day dawned far too early, and all too soon Sakura found herself back in the tiny room, listening to the voices of those on the other side of a sheet of paper and trying to make sense of what they were saying and what they meant.

The attention was still focused on the Daimyo, of course, and theoretical actions that the emissaries wanted the Daimyo to take, but now the delegates from Earth, Lightning, and Water huddled in a corner and Hot Water (one of the smaller nations Fire had, in the past, been accused of puppeting) hovered near them, never close enough to be confronted outright but far too close for comfort.

There's an art to losing. There's an art to nearly everything, Sakura thinks, but losing is one that is particularly difficult to master.

Not, mind you, because it is terribly difficult to lose.

It is rather simple to lose to begin with, and adding an adverb to that (gracefully, redeemably, appropriately, unflinchingly, momentarily) is usually fairly straightforward too.

The problem is that losing isn't exactly... well, it's failure. And when one is failing their attention is usually on THAT, rather than ensuring they're failing in the best way possible.

Generally speaking, Konoha wants its ninja to learn how to lose early. Not, again, because they want them to fail, but because failure is to some extent inevitable so you might as well learn how to do it the best way you can.

Sakura learned how to lose in games, in spars, in school competitions and fights over chores.

She had not yet lost in any impactful way, but now, sitting at the desk beside Juro, she was overcome with the feeling that she—that the entire diplomacy corps—were in the midst of failing, of losing, and would refuse to realize it for far too long.

By the time they realized, really and truly, that they had failed they would have no chance at failing gracefully, redeemably, appropriately, unflinchingly, or momentarily.

On the other side of the rice paper one of the diplomats laughed, and Sakura stared down at her notes. Today was not a good day to be Konoha.

.

At the end of the weak each of the emissaries from the other nations left one by one.

Nothing had changed in the past few days, at least at a purely legislative level—the tariffs were the same, the currency exchange rates steady, the smaller nations still as relatively powerless as always.

And yet it did not feel like nothing had happened.

The chunin had come back from Konoha with orders from the Hokage—monitor carefully, and try to draw support.

Sakura found those orders stupid, and ignorant of the actions already being taken.

She was too smart to voice her objections aloud.

The Daimyo, as far as he went, seemed content to ignore the different-new-unnerving-not good, in favor of hosting a party on the final day of the emissaries' stay.

Sensei had come back from his meeting with the man with no good news; Konoha was shouting "smoke!" and the Daimyo was saying "just a cloud."

Sakura thought he was an idiot too, but if she ever said that she'd be twice as much of an idiot at least.

At least Lightning didn't try anything, both Kumo' and their Daimyo's emissaries apparently on their best behavior.

Wind seemed more or less content too; apparently there had been higher than usual rainfall in their neck of the woods that year so they were less desperately clinging on to the edge of survival than usual.

(This was, of course, a terribly unfair mischaracterization. But it was true that their survival depended largely on trade, and trade was all too quick to disintegrate in the face of warfare, be it physical, economic, or some other kind entirely.)

The nations, and the people that made them up, would continue on, unaware at least in the immediate future of what, exactly, the north was planning.

None of Konoha was happy with that, but their hands were far too tied to audibly complain.

Instead the delegation, chinmoku included, threw themselves into part two of the Spring session: internal matters.

Compared to the pace of the first week, the rest of the session seemed to slow to a crawl. The court itself tended to disband one or two hours earlier, and much more time was spent on private one-on-one meetings, meetings that Sakura did not have to transcribe. She did have to attend a few of them, now—with Lightning gone the need to prove loyalty, strength, and respect by showing off the lineage of chinmoku had become much more important—but she (and her teammates) suddenly also had free time.

Their first few bits of free time was spent where they spent everything else: the living quarters.

Shin wrote. Juro read his medical textbooks. Sakura bounced around a bit, feeling locked up, before settling down to do some writing of her own—she had some ideas about how to test Arden's understanding of science in her own world, and wanted to map out the plans as specifically as possible before making the attempt.

Sometimes they'd spar. There was time for it now, between oohing and aahing at one courtier's art collection in exchange for increased support regarding the tax on imported water and carefully slogging through the 83 (83!) introduced amendments to the same tax.

Sakura still sucked at sparring compared to Juro and Shin, but not by as much as she had previously—Juro had yet to get a good grasp at how to use his kekkai genkai in enclosed spaces, the only training areas they had access to, and while Shin's burgeoning shadow control was good it tended to exhaust him quickly and he was always too eager to use it instead of conserving energy. Sakura still had to deal with the burden of a smaller and less strong body, but she was quite flexible and fast and was now averaging three to five 'mental snags' per spar (three against Juro, who was better at hiding his eyes, and five at Shin, who had to use his eyes to control his shadows for the time being and was therefore almost guaranteed a period of weakness.)

Still, Sakura found being more or less stuck to the same few rooms whenever she wasn't working more than a little frustrating, and quickly found herself going stir-crazy.

"Would you stop?" Shin snapped, not looking up from his most recent attempt at poetry (it was a popular art form in the Capital, and Shin had been certain it would be a breeze to translate his storytelling capabilities over to the new hobby. He had been wrong, which had infuriated him enough to abandon fiction writing entirely, at least for the moment.)

"Stop what?"

" _Bouncing_."

Sakura didn't think that was very fair. She wasn't bouncing, she was pacing. Admittedly, she was pacing to a rhythm, but that didn't make it bouncing.

"I'm not bouncing."

"Then stop whatever it is you are doing!"

"Breathing? Loving? _Existing_?"

"Sakura." Shin glared at her.

From across the room, in their shared futon, Juro snored.

"What?"

"Sakura."

"I'm bored!" She knew she sounded pitiful and annoying, whining like that, but it was true—she was bored.

Anyway, she was nearly ten years old. It didn't seem particularly fair to her that she was still being locked up (never mind that Shin and Juro, eleven and twelve respectively, were too.)

"Go to the onsen then."

Sakura sighed. It was a good suggestion; while it would do little to alleviate her boredom, it would at least get her out of Shin's way so he would stop glaring at her.

She left.

Sakura didn't particularly like onsens. She was one of remarkably few that didn't—they were treated almost as the number one worldwide pastime, as far as she could figure. But to her personally, they just…didn't seem that pleasant.

The heat and steam and wetness seemed to press down on her chest, for one, and for another the whole 'relaxing' aspect was less relaxing and more (shocker) boring.

It was like meditating without the benefits.

Sakura didn't even like meditating to begin with.

Still, the walk to the onsen would be nice, and it was one of the few trips she was allowed to take unaccompanied.

She grabbed the necessary toiletries, told one of the three chunin currently in the living quarters of her plan, and took off.

The shinobi quarters were in what seemed to be a good part of town; it was small but bracketed on either side by the lodging for samurai leaders and a small temple to the mythical founder of the "Great City." A large wall—one of the oldest in the city—butted against the back of the building, and the windows in the front gave view to a great many courtier homes, the kind that were only used as a residence during court sessions compared to the far larger, continually occupied, ones that bordered the Daimyo's own residence.

The onsen that was shared by the part time residences and military quarters was large, decorated liberally in jade, and only three blocks away using an L-shaped route.

Sakura headed straight for it.

Unsurprisingly the women's side of the onsen was deserted. The courtiers, if they didn't actually live in the Capital, saw little point in carting their families around for every court session, and the samurai didn't have any women to begin with. Sakura was sure that the number of women who actually used the onsen numbered around a dozen, if that.

The men's side was far more crowded, raised voices and hushed whispers as various members of the court used the location to get to know each other, make and break deals, and push their various agendas.

This purpose was unfortunately well understood and encouraged, so small seals (donated by Uzu many years ago) ensured that all of the upperclass onsen had protection from any eavesdroppers and peepers.

(The good part of that was that Sakura could therefore not be given the duty of sitting in the onsen all day, every day, to gather information, but she supposed the additional information would have been beneficial to Konoha as a whole—especially because most other methods to dissuade listeners-in were no match for chakra.)

All of that meant that, for Sakura, there was no purpose to the onsen but its intended use.

Wasting no time, she stripped and sank onto a bench inside and sighed into the heat, hoping it would be time for her next shift before this too drove her mad.


	20. Genin: The Capital, Part 3

It wasn't until the last week of the Daimyo's court—the second to last that they were in the Capital at all—that chinmoku were given leave to go about the city on their own.

"Only as a group, mind." Sensei had added. He'd glanced at each of them in turn, clearly still distrusting of their ability to care for themselves and wanting assurance that they'd behave. "This place is still quite foreign to how Konoha works, and it would be unfortunate if you find yourselves caught in any unintentional missteps without a way to extricate yourself."

The warning had been a bit daunting, but not much of a deterrent; by the time permission was granted, it was not simply Sakura but Juro and Shin as well who were feeling more than a little caged.

Still, it was sound advice: this city did not work as their own did, and it should not be treated as if it were analogous.

It was Shin who suggested, and the rest who agreed, that they stay in the more touristy places—the cultural mash would already be occurring there, so there was little worry about them (Fire natives, unlike many) worsening it.

They'd started with the Main Street before diverting into several of the others. They were somewhat barred from activity because they could usually only explore in the evenings: mornings were spent preparing for and attending the session, while afternoons were spent completing court, meeting with one noble or another, and briefing about the day's activities. Nonetheless they always found one attraction or another to entertain themselves—they'd spent one hour in a fabric shop, gathering gifts for various loved ones and marveling at the sheer variety available. Another hour or so was taken up revisiting one of the first nobles they'd been introduced to; a staunch advocate of chakra use in general, the man (or, more accurately, the various experts he employed) had found various and marvelous ways to use the energy to twist plants one way or another, creating fantastic living scenes that could be touched and interacted with.

Several hours, spread over the course of days, was given to street performers. There were very few during the day, spread apart in some of the squares of the commercial district, but at night they seemed to flood onto every street corner, particularly in the slightly seedier, lower end portion of the area. While several of the performers…talents weren't really intended for an audience as young as chinmoku, they found more than enough entertainment in the rest; in the contortionists, dancers, musicians—there were even street artists, who would cobble together incredibly accurate (or funny) portraits for barely anything. (Chinmoku had each gotten their own and had even managed, on a day that had gone particularly well, to convince Sensei Mitokado to join them in a team portrait.)

As time progressed, the three genin grew more and more daring, exploring further and further afield. They were always careful, of course, they'd be stupid not to, but… well, nothing seemed inherently more dangerous than wandering around Konoha.

There were less trees, and more obliviousness, and there was no sewage system outside of the wealthiest portions of the city, and the urban area as a whole was several times larger than Konoha would likely ever be, but.

Sensei Mitokado did not seem like a person who took all that many unnecessary risks, no matter how unlikely said risks were, so his worries seemed increasingly overblown and decreasingly important.

At some point Juro found out where the university was located, and that clinched the activity of their last several days in the Capital; safe enough for Sensei, and interesting enough for the rest of them.

"Iryoninjutsu has risks, though." The… professor? Teaching assistant? Said in reply to something Juro had explained.

Juro nodded. "I'll admit to that, but then that's true of almost any medical practice—you're not about to stop using ether, are you?"

The question of using chakra in medicine was a surprisingly hotly contended one, at least outside of Konoha. Inside Konoha over half the doctors were ninja outright, either retired or still in service, and Sakura hadn't even heard a whisper of civilians (who were more apt to be wary of any type of chakra use than to those for whom it was characteristic) worrying about being treated using iryoninjutsu. Here in the Capital not only was the general ability to use chakra treated warily and as if war was the only possible application, but the idea of being treated with it seemed to be felt as analogous to letting the shinigami into your house yourself.

Juro, for all that he was keeping his temper about this difference in perception, was visibly perturbed.

Sakura thought that maybe insulting professors might not be the way to go, so she scratched her ear, flashing Juro and Shin the sign for 'abort'.

"What time is it?" Shin asked, turning to look out the window. The professor(?) looked down at his wrist, where a watch—recently invented but already maddeningly increasing in popularity—sat, tied to his arm with a leather strap.

"About a quarter to eight." He said, fiddling with one of the knobs.

"Oh, we're supposed to be back by eight." Sakura said in a false whisper. It was untrue, but as excuses went it was a fairly believable one.

Juro, getting the message, said his polite goodbyes, and the three exited the building and made their way back into the streets of the city.

Surrounding the university itself was several blocks of student lodgings, bars, and cheap apartments. Sakura would guess that about one in ten buildings in the entire section was abandoned, and graffiti—most cheaply done, some quite beautiful, others less so—stretched across nearly every inch of those unmonitored surfaces. Nonetheless the place as a whole was bustling with life, with students going to or from classes, other adults commuting in the same way; none of it gave off much of a feeling of being in danger—Sakura guessed that, with the occasional pickpocket that frequented the more well-kept squares, this place was even safer than the areas usually well populated by tourists from within and without Fire Country borders. They'd wandered in the area before—there was a bakery Juro found which was great, and it was a nice change of pace from the more populated areas—and never felt remotely endangered.

As they were walking back from the university, though, the hairs on the back of Sakura's neck began to stand up. She glanced at her teammates, who didn't seem to have noticed anything, then backwards—nothing seemed amiss.

And yet…

They rounded a corner, coming upon the more commercial central street that would eventually run to the center of the city.

Sakura's eyes darted around, watching.

The boys, by that point, had been put on alert by her odd behavior, and had adjusted themselves slightly, holding themselves at the ready for an unseen danger.

But nothing seemed amiss, nothing different from what it had been all the times they'd walked down this road before.

It was her nerves, probably, and Sensei constantly warning them of hidden perils. She'd grown a bit paranoid, obviously.

Still, something felt off.

She flickered her chakra sense, but nothing seemed wrong there either—chinmoku had the strongest chakra signatures in the area by far.

They walked a few more paces, coming upon a crowd outside a bar.

Those weren't all that uncommon, but Sakura gave them more leeway than she had any previous night—drunken people were harder to predict, so perhaps that was why she felt uncomfortable.

They passed the bar.

The next crowd was three streets away, in front of a small tucked-away bookstore.

That crowd was also not particularly noteworthy; they'd been there every time Sakura had passed the place, and usually there was one youth or another standing on top of a pile of boxes, preaching about the need for reform, for change.

(The previous time they'd come here, the morning before—for the bakery—the sermon had been about the unfair cost of education. Sakura couldn't say she related, the academy being relatively cheap and paid for by her clan besides, but the crowd clearly had.)

Today's, worryingly, was about ninja.

"—time for change! Time for a new era, one of peace!"

The crowd roared with approval.

"The shinobi have forced wars upon us for too long! It is time we step up and say, enough! Enough! No one else should die for your worthless displays of power!"

Another roar of approval, and now Sakura was tense.

This wasn't good.

She considered slipping off her headband—there was a good chance no one had noticed it yet—but chose not to. The movement would likely catch the eyes of the orator, if only because those same eyes were sweeping about now, looking for support and dissidents alike.

The rest of chinmoku made the same decision.

The youth moved to speak again. "I grew up near Grass! I have seen the pain of the war they have already forced upon us! These shinobi, they visit our towns, our lands, and they say they are doing us a favor, and we ask for promises of no more war, no more death and destruction.

And what do they do in return? They laugh!"

The crowd disapproved of this.

"They laugh as if the idea is absurd, but I know better! We know better! Before the shinobi got together in their so-called hidden villages there weren't massive wars! The Daimyos had secured their lands decades ago, they saw no reason for thousands to die changing them! But it was too peaceful for the shinobi—no, they needed death to make a living. So what did they do? They came together, and they plotted behind our backs, and then they killed our countrymen, all the while pretending they had no choice!"

That was… well, that wasn't even remotely accurate. Sakura was fully prepared to believe the history she'd been taught was slanted wholly in the favor of shinobi and the Leaf in particular, but the Warring States Period was called that for a reason, and the reality of that time was obvious if one talked to anybody who had lived through it, ninja or samurai or civilian. And to say the Daimyos had stopped fighting for decades—the man had either done absolutely no research, had never actually visited any town on the border of any country, or he was delusional.

"No more shinobi!" He began to chant. The crowd followed him eagerly.

"No more shinobi!"

"No more shinobi!"

Sakura, Shin, and Juro had picked up their pace, had finally been able to only show the crowd the back of their heads, when a call rang out.

"I see shinobi!"

They didn't turn, but it was too late. Several from the crowd—the more militant, from the looks of it—split off under the eager orders of the orator and were now surrounding chinmoku surprisingly quickly.

Sakura's mind raced. Using chakra in the city was supposed to be avoided in all but the direst of circumstances, and injuring a civilian—a Fire civilian, no less—was never to be done at all, but they were running out of other options.

They were much smaller than those closing in on them (mostly men, her brain analyzed; young and angry and hyped up by the crowd), and while they were stronger that wasn't a benefit they were allowed to use. Sakura considered calling for help, but this area wasn't well monitored by police—mostly just left to itself—so there wasn't really anyone to hear them.

This wasn't good.

This really wasn't good.

There weren't any—this wasn't—she couldn't—

Someone in the front—male, early twenties, her brain analyzed, muscular enough, very angry—raised his fist and—

Sensei Mitokado appeared in front of them, and a sharp shock of killing intent pulsed out of him.

In an instant the tone changed

Faced with that, faced with a larger opponent, the crowd hesitated. Those in the back turned around most quickly, and then, feeling their support break, the rest seemed to realize the possible consequences of their actions.

Sakura watched, breathless, as the street cleared.

Sensei Mitokado turned around.

His face, as usual, was expressionless, but Sakura had been trained by him for months now—she knew… well, she knew he was feeling something. (He was a complicated man, okay? And she was two seconds away from being beaten the crap out of not two minutes ago, so… so what if she couldn't tell what he was thinking?)

"Let's…" Sensei sighed. "Let's get you back to our rooms."

Shin shivered. Sakura nodded.

She couldn't wait to be back in Konoha.

.

The next day chinmoku took a break from records and finances and scheming, and instead lined against a wall immediately inside their rooms, shifting back and forth nervously.

"What you just saw…" Sensei began. He looked at them, then frowned and rubbed his forehead, allowing his calm veneer to break. "What you just saw is more common, I think, then you realize."

"I knew—" Juro said "—that shinobi didn't have full support, of everyone; they don't even have that in Konoha. But… they were going to attack us. Like, actually attack us."

"Yes, they were."

No one spoke.

"Shinobi are powerful." Sensei finally said. "Very, very powerful. With a flick of our wrists we can kill; some of us don't even have to do that much. That we are capable of that—that, not only that, but we train our entire lives to do so—is unsettling."

Sakura could agree with that, at least… though, given Shin' and Juro's reactions, she wondered if that particular perception was more Arden-made then she had thought.

"We can tell them, honestly and truly, that we are necessary—that if we were not here, then the shinobi from the other nations would come here, would kill many. Of course, to most peasants there is little difference between them and us, and it is that we are fighting at all that is the problem—if there was only one group of shinobi across all the lands then all problems would be solved."

Shin snorted. Sakura agreed with his sentiment, too.

"Yes, well, because of that every hidden village does its best to argue for their dominance; propaganda is a large portion of it, of course, but there is also a reason that we have a reputation as tree-huggers: that reputation is what grants us with the fewest rebellions of all Great Nations.

The fewest.

Not none."

"But—" Shin said, before falling silent.

"They are doing their best to look out for their own interests, given what information they have." Sensei said.

And that was that.

The delegation left shortly after; six wagons all in a row.

There had been a party before then, of course, and many statements of loyalty and happiness. But by the time that season's court session wrapped up everyone was well and truly done, so everyone relied more and more on rote than anything else.

And then it was over.

And then they were on the road.

And then they were home.

Sakura collapsed on her bed, thrilled to be finally done with a position she'd never even wanted, and had one last thought:

All that time learning about horses, and boats, and fancy ways of transportation.

And she had used none of it.


	21. Genin, Back Home, Part 1

Sakura, now ten, found herself suddenly and unnervingly elevated in the clan hierarchy. Her time in the Capital, for all that functionally she barely qualified as more than a copy writer, was considered enough of a boon to the clan's reputation as a whole that her own individual reputation was lifted in response.

She didn't like it.

It took hours of her free time every week, for one, and instead of getting to hang out with her friends or perform all the experiments she'd come up with in the Capital she had to have tea with the elders, join in with family rituals, and take 'walks' with the political leaders within her clan, all poking and prodding for information she could not (for one reason or another) provide. The ability to participate in the talks, rites, and (insofar as they were pressing her for information) clan leadership was supposed to be an honor, but it didn't feel like it.

The worst part of it was that she now had a permanent C-rank: tutor.

For Inoichi.

In diplomacy, because the boy had a different tutor for each subject.

His other team members—Shikaku and Choza—had their own individual tutors for each subject too.

Sakura did not like heirs.

She was willing to admit, however, that Inoichi wasn't a terrible student. He was clearly very smart—as smart as she was, probably—and liked messing with people's heads enough that the idea of doing so on the scale of countries was motivating enough to pay attention.

She just thought he was a snot.

"…so…" Inoichi said. He was slumped over the table, his head resting on one arm as he turned his face towards her while the other arm waved idly in the air. "So why don't they just move, then? If there's no more river?"

"That was the largest river by far, so it's not like they had anywhere else which was an obviously equal choice. Their original location was also basically the best place in Wind to have a hidden village." Sakura said. "Very hard to siege, many nearby resources... plus it's not near any other population center; that's appreciated, because… because, um, a lot of people are afraid of shinobi. And, well, everything was already there."

"Okay, I get that." Inoichi said. "I do, really. It's just—why didn't they better prepare? They had to have seen it coming."

"Not really." Sakura said. "The river had been _very_ large. It was known that you could change the routes of rivers, even dry them up completely with dams, but… no one had ever done it for a river that large, or anything even close. So Suna didn't even consider that Iwa was capable of doing that, much less that they'd actually spend the time and effort and lives, _during a war,_ to do it."

"Fine, so if it was so difficult why did Earth do it, then?"

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Sakura said. "Wind may be a major trading hub, and it might have a lot of mines, but it was always hugely reliant on their _single major river_ for food. Now they have the smaller rivers, yeah, and oases, and the edges of their lands which have more rainfall, but… before trading was nice, it was helpful for giving Wind enough of a leg up to be considered a Great Nation. After? Right now they literally need trade to keep their population afloat."

"Which means… they can't go to war. Or, at least, they don't want to. Because… trade mostly stops during war."

"Exactly. By doing what they did Iwa ensured not only that Suna had to back off during the current war, but also that they wouldn't be able to stay in any other major war for very long either."

"But they _do_ go to war."

"Well, yeah, but only against Iwa; Iwa doesn't call anyone else in because Konoha makes noises about protecting Suna, and Suna never brings Konoha in because they know that'll cause another Great War and they need trade to continue."

"Fun."

"Yep."

"I'd still move."

Sakura rolled her eyes.

Saturdays, at least (and with significant effort on her part), were now completely free. It took a very short time for Sakura to decide not to let the day fall into a routine: one week she might spend the day with chinmoku, the next with the whole of the Training Ground 40 group that were available. The Saturday after Inoichi's lessons on Iwa/Suna relations Sakura decided to hang out with several of the other Yamanaka girls her age or a bit older.

They went shopping.

"I'm sorry, but that's just ugly." Hana frowned, stepping back to get a fuller picture.

"I like peach!" The other Hana snapped, twisting around in the peachy-orange shirt in front of the mirror.

"Peach is a perfectly nice color," Sakura said, "it just doesn't go with anything, does it?"

"I think it does." She nodded, then went back into the changing room. Sakura and the remaining Hana exchanged glances.

"Well, at least we're not wearing it."

"Where to next?" Inohina asked.

"I need a dress for cousin Sakura's wedding—not you, Sakura, the Sakura with nine fingers."

"You don't have it yet?"

"I… may have torn my kimono."

Everyone turned to look at Ayumi.

"How?" Sakura asked.

"I—look, sometimes clothing just tears, you know?"

"Not formal kimonos." The older of the Hanas (and the one with better taste) said.

"I—okay, look, you know Haru? With the scar on his lip?"

"The one that won the footrace last month?"

"Yes, him. He, um, asked me out." The other girls tittered. "And, well, we went out. Last weekend."

"But how did that lead to your formal kimono tearing?" Inohina said. "Not only that, but tearing enough that you need a new one."

"He asked me to dress up!" Ayumi said. "So I did."

There was a pause.

"You did…?"

"He took me out to dinner, and dancing." Ayumi said. "And, it was really nice. And then we went for a walk. And, um, we got… distracted."

"Distracted."

"Yes, distracted. And so we didn't realize that we'd wandered a bit off the path—"

"The grass wasn't a sign?"

"We were very distracted." Ayumi defended. Then, all in a rush, she finished. "So we went of the path, and then there was a tree root, and his foot got stuck, and I tried to unstick it but we were laughing so much so then my kimono got stuck on a branch and I didn't notice, because of the laughing, and we got his foot unstuck but then we got distracted again and by the time we went to walk away from the copse… well, the point is I need a new kimono."

Sakura snickered.

"So was it worth it?" Inohina asked.

" _Very._ "

Sakura quite liked having free time.

.

About a month and a half after returning Chinmoku was given their next "long" C-rank mission. Thankfully it was only supposed to be a few weeks, not even a full month, but it was an unfortunate change of pace from the at home living they had already grown used to.

They're instructions were clear; they were to go to the giant plans to the far west of Konoha, where they would act as the labor and guard to build a school for the children of the nomadic people who grazed cattle there. It was the Daimyo's latest attempt at trying to keep pace with the other Great Nations; given that Lightning especially was a threat not due to its population but due to the average level of education, as part of the Spring Session the Daimyo granted every child in the Fire Nation the right to five years of cheap schooling within at least twenty kilometers of their residence.

The tribes of the plain had absolutely no schools nearby, so this was the first step.

It was, Sakura supposed, progress.

The travel itself wasn't bad. The supplies were being sourced more locally and would be transported there by private merchants and caravans, so they'd packed light and moved quickly across miles and miles of road. After some time Sensei led them into the grassland itself, which required a change of pace; the snakes were a real worry, and the dirt road had helped to keep an eye out, but now they relied on their thick boots and aimed to move too quickly, most of the time, for the snakes to react.

Larger predators were more easily avoided.

They reached the sight at around mid-morning, weary but not exhausted from travel, and stopped at the edge of the land that had already been cleared in preparation for the school's construction. A small hut had been constructed there and, after several seconds' waiting, their knock was responded to by the door swinging open and a portly man with a long mustache blinking at them.

"Hello, hello! You're the team from Leaf, then?"

"Yes." Sensei said. "Three laborers—" he gestured to chinmoku, "and me as protection."

"Perfect, perfect! Come in."

The hut, for that was all it was, was mostly filled by the small bed clearly meant for the mustachioed man. The rest of the room was given to the small table and a cushion to kneel on. Papers were piled across the bed—requisition forms, stock forms, and architectural plans covered receipts, letters, and budgets. More paper, as well as an ink well and pen, sat on the small table. The three of them—Shin stayed outside to keep watch, and Juro stayed outside to start on their own sleeping arrangements—stood just a bit too close together as the man leant over his bed, trying to find a specific paper.

"Not much here…" He muttered as he rifled through the papers. "Land's fine, not very fertile but that doesn't much matter when building a school. Flat, too—a nice change from the mountains and hills and forests." He yanked out on paper triumphantly, then frowned and placed it back on the bed to search another pile. "Not much to keep watch for, here; there's just not anything that's valuable enough to entice bandits… some wild animals, but most are harmless. The panthers and boars aren't, but the boars tend to stick to a bit more cover than anything around here provides and the panthers go for the cattle, usually, or the herds of wild grazers. If you don't see them, then there aren't any cats either." This time the man was successful, and he turned around fully to face Sakura and Sensei Mitokado. "Here."

Sensei took the proffered contract and scanned it with a practiced eye. It was a copy of the same sheet Konoha'd been sent from the Capital, explaining the required work and pay. He nodded, then gestured to the ink well, which the man let him use to sign the paper.

"How about the native population?" Sensei asked. "Do you think they'll be any trouble?"

Sakura's ears pricked, but the man didn't seem worried. "No, no. They're not paying us any mind. I've been out here about a week now without issue, and I didn't even bother with a guard after the first three days—too expensive, especially to have them stand around waiting for nothing. The natives… well, they herd cattle. That's about it. Most of them don't speak the common language, which is unfortunate, but each of the families—tribes—whatever they're called, each of them have at least one that does." He gestured to the architectural plans next. "This is the plan. One room for the first two grades, the other for the next three, a small outhouse, and this house—it's supposed to be for the teachers, but the government wants to see if we can get the families that live furthest afield to pay for boarding too."

"Do you think they will accept?" Sensei asked. He was examining the architecture in fine detail now, occasionally pointing out certain details to Sakura. Architecture wasn't really something Sakura'd ever studied, but she made notes about where he'd pointed; in all likelihood, they'd go over what he'd noticed later, at dinner, and she'd be expected to explain to the boys what she saw.

"I mean, I'm just the architect, but the government seems pretty optimistic. They're trying to market this as opportunity and childcare all rolled into one but this far away from civilization most kids start working the second they get their legs under them so we'll see."

Sakura found that take very, very funny considering her own age, but then she supposed she did complete her own years of schooling before being allowed to 'work' so it wasn't quite the same thing.

"Alright." Sensei said, handing the man back his papers. Sakura noticed the man had never given his name—she wondered why. "We'll get settled in today, and I'll have the genin ready to work tomorrow. It looks like the land needs to be cleared before anything else, so I'll have them start at dawn, if that's alright with you."

The man nodded, apparently relieved. "Just—not too much noise, okay? It has been a very long time since I've been forced to get up at dawn, and I have no desire to go back to that."

Sensei agreed easily, and the two of them wedged their bodies back outside.

The building of the school, Sensei explained, would actually be relatively easy.

Relatively.

The school building would be the simplest—a floor, walls, and thatch roof. The doors wouldn't be put in until winter; until then they would be kept inside the teacher's quarters, away from any problematic weather. To make up for that the roof would stretch out a bit in front of the school, to provide shade and safety from rain.

The outhouse wouldn't be much harder. It would have a door put on immediately, but the larger issue was the deep, deep ditch that would have to be dug under it—the task wouldn't be particularly difficult, but the exertion necessary would be significant.

It was the teacher's house which would be the most difficult. It would have four doors, one each for a teacher and two for prospective boarders, and it would need to be insulated better to deal with nightly as well as daily use; a fireplace would be built in, one of the more modern designs, and windows with glass in them too, instead of the simple open holes with wooden shutters meant for the school building.

There would also be large basins for rainwater, and an open yard between the three buildings for exercises.

Getting everything done in time, with just the three of them as laborers, wouldn't be fun, but it was also far from impossible.

They slept, and at dawn, as promised, Sakura, Juro, and Shin got up to finish clearing the land.

It was midday before they were done, and that was working as quickly as they could. It got easier the more they got used to it, but it still wasn't easy. Then they settled in for lunch, making a quick fire out of some of the cleared grass.

The man exited his hut at around that time.

"Good, good, good." He said, surveying the cleared land. "We'll start on the largest of the buildings first, I think—that's the school building. I'll mark it out."

They kept working like that, physical exertion more than anything else, for several days.

And then the visitors came.

It was Sakura who saw their faces first. "Shin—Shin!" Sakura said from her spot on the roof, nodding to the side. From his spot opposite her Shin glanced down first the opposite way, then the way she gestured to—all the better to evade notice.

"Huh. I wonder who they are."

"Well, given the size of their faces I doubt they're bandits." Sakura said. Shin rolled his eyes.

"Should we alert anyone?"

"No." Sakura decided. "Sensei's spotted them already, probably, and there's no point anyway. They're just curious."

"Can I say hi?"

"Ask Sensei."

"Sensei!" Shin said. He'd raised his voice but kept it completely level—no danger.

"What is your question?" Sensei shouted back. Sakura couldn't see him, from her angle, but Shin clearly could, and he angled his torso to get better line of sight.

"Can I say hi?"

"They won't understand you." Sensei said. "They don't recognize any of the words we are using now."

"I can wave though."

"Wave away."

Shin waved.

Sakura rolled her eyes, a mimic of his earlier action, but waved too. Good PR was important.

The children stood, spotted, then inched closer, and Shin slid down from the roof, then waved again.

They, tentatively, waved back.

The youngest of them, Sakura judged, was probably around six, give or take a year. The oldest was their age—or, more probably, Shin' or Juro's age. He took the lead, stepping forward in front of the group. All but two of the eight were male.

Sakura watched as Shin—by far the most social of the group, after so much forced practice—waved his hand at the inside of the building, asking if they wanted a look inside. Some of the younger ones darted forward before grinding to a halt and glancing back at the oldest. He sighed and gestured them forward, before moving forward himself.

They disappeared into the building under her.

Sakura finished her current portion of the roof them slipped down the side of the building to grab the next materials—no point in using chakra for something as easily as that.

The children were still inside the building, talking in hushed voices at what they saw. In Sakura's eyes there wasn't anything much—the furniture and educational supplies wouldn't arrive for another week, and until then it was barren. Still, she supposes to the children it was a bit unusual: they'd used tools to make the clay walls quite flat, and the floor was a sort of concrete which was supposed to hold up in both the heat and cold.

Sakura'd only just climbed back on the roof when the children exited, darting excitedly to what would become the outhouse. They hadn't gotten the walls up for that, yet: they were still digging the hole, and the architect wanted it deep enough that one of them had been set aside each morning, afternoon, and evening to work on it. The longer it would take to need re-digging, the better.

Now the children were clustered around the hole, shouting into it at Juro. The oldest was still keeping an eye out—that was good. The littler ones, however, didn't care.

"Sensei." Sakura said. He was nearer to her, now, watching the direction the children came from.

"Yes."

"The roof should be done by the evening. I'm set to dig, then. Should I set Shin and Juro on the next roof?" They'd already finished the walls of the boarding house, so that would be the next step.

"No—we'll start on that tomorrow; tonight I'll help them start on the clay for the last walls."

"Hai."

The children broke off, now, going to the last building. Shin followed them still, laughing as he gestured wildly at the children and they gestured wildly back. Ideally, they'd go back to their village with a good opinion of both the school and the people with headbands carrying the Leaf.

The man hadn't exited his hut. He usually came out every few hours to critique their work, but he hadn't found any problems with their thatching or digging, so for the past two days he'd only bothered checking up on them once. According to Sensei he was reviewing his next assignment; this was an easy one, but one that didn't make much money: the materials and labor were provided to him by the state, so the man only got the cost of his expertise.

Most people, Sakura thought, believed Ninja to be concerned with nothing but killing. In truth, they acted as a military-cum-public works department for the entirety of their nation, providing labor for small projects throughout the country as well as keeping the land safe from internal and external threats. The idea was that if ninja provided the labor then it would be done more cost efficiently for the nation as a whole, act as a boon to Konoha's reputation, and protect particularly large works—like the road being constructed through the mountain range to the Capital's south. This particular project was more the latter than the former, but it was still 'shinobi' work, for all that it didn't feel much like what they'd been trained for.

Still, the construction only took ten days.

The teachers had arrived by then, a young man and older woman who had each previously taught before. They chose their classrooms then disappeared to the horizon, off to begin convincing various parents to pay the nominal fee. Neither spoke the local language, so Sakura suspected they wouldn't be back any time soon, and Team 18 would definitely not be around to see their return—the buildings had been erected, the supplies moved indoors, and the contract duly recorded as complete. They left for Konoha where, upon arrival, they would be a tiny bit richer than they had been before, before immediately being sent out on a new mission: acting as customs inspection at the border between the Land of Fire and Tea.

.

As spring bled into summer Sakura's genin work finally turned from all-purpose lessons and missions to, at last, research.

Kind of.

That is to say, she was officially slotted into the Research division twice a week as, officially, a 'genin assistant' and less officially, a 'gopher'.

"Your job will consist primarily of making tea, delivering meals, filing forms, cleaning, and ferrying various items."

Sakura didn't know why the genin corps couldn't so that job.

Sensei narrowed his eyes at her. "The genin corps can't do the job for the same reason regular civilians can't do theirs; it has been decided that the Research division assistants must be more difficult to torture for information than the average corps member."

How… cheery.

"It also provides you time to acclimate to the pace of the division and earn your stripes." Sensei finished, but that didn't really bring much comfort after how he'd begun.

Still, Research had been her goal for years now, so Sakura found herself more than happy to fill the labor shortage formed by a former Research genin's promotion.

The Research division had multiple labs throughout Konoha, but its headquarters (the building she was told to report to) was slotted between the Aburame lands and a relatively empty training ground which was on permanent reserve to the same division; not quite as close as the Administrative Building was to her house, but still not tucked into the furthest possible corner like T&I's headquarters.

A chunin—she could tell by the cut of his vest—stood outside the building, smoking idly as he waited for her to near.

"Genin Yamanaka Sakura?" He called out.

"Yes."

"Great. I'm Takeo Maeda. Come on in."

The building was three stories tall and opened into a narrow hallway with two staircases, one leading up, the other down, that took up most of it. Two doors bracketed the entrance; one was open, and the man led her through it first. "This is the break room." He said. "That's the kitchen, you'll be in charge of keeping the tables clear, and back there are cots that can be used if someone needs a powernap while they wait for one experiment or another." He led her back outside, to the other door. "This leads to the offices—there are three here, for the Head and two of the five Deputy Heads. The others have their offices in other labs." Back out into the hallway. "You're not allowed in the basement labs—insufficient clearance, but you will be getting to know the upstairs labs. You'll also be asked to bring things to the basement steps occasionally, but that's it." They went up.

The second floor also had one door on each wall, but the staircases overlapped each other so you had to walk down the length of the hallway to get to the third floor.

"Alright, so our main labs for Human Research and Engineering are beside the hospital, but that door—you see the symbol—that does biological research too. On the other side there's the main Communication and Detection Research lab, but they mostly build and test stuff in training grounds and around Fire Nation as a whole." He led her up the last set of stairs. Three doors.

"And these are the rest of the labs: Efficiency Sciences and Survivability/Lethality Analysis—they both mostly do analysis on papers and the like—on the left and Weapons and Materials Research on the right. That's the fun lab."

He led her back downstairs, all the way to the breakroom where, next to the door, a stool and ten bells sat. "You see the bells?"

She nodded.

"One for each lab and office, one that leads all the way to the Hokage's office, and one—the unlabeled one—that leads to the Head's house. If any of them ring you fix the bell back into place—it'll get stuck, so that you know if someone asked for you while you weren't here—and go to them. Easy enough?"

Sakura nodded.

"Great! Well, three bells have already rung, so have at it."

It didn't take long for Sakura to get into the swing of things. The job was just as Sensei described; the thing she did most often was delivery. Following that cleaning was probably the most common, and occasionally—when she was particularly lucky—rewriting a researcher's notes to make them legible.

It took some time, but after the first month or so she'd at least figured out how to time her tasks such that she was usually in the break room when most researchers were taking their breaks and able to eavesdrop.

That was the closest she got to actually researching.

So… yeah.

At least she got to know the general structure and people involved in researching, even if they were overwhelmingly older shinobi on second or third focuses.

The Head was not a man she saw often. He was a very, very elderly Aburame who was called nothing but the Head, and only came in occasionally; most of his research was done in the Aburame lands, and then he'd show up occasionally with packets of his findings that Sakura (or one of the other two genin who worked there) would be in charge of correctly disseminating.

Beyond him Sakura also got to know the Deputy Heads. The two who were most frequently inside the building (the Survivability/Lethality Analysis and Weapons and Materials Researchers) were also relatively old jonin; an Aburame and an Uchiha, respectively. The Efficiency Deputy Head was a Nara who Sakura didn't recognize; she had an eyepatch and a limp, and was sharp tongued and intimidating. Sakura really, really liked her, but the Nara mostly worked out of the Administrative Building, choosing a new department every day to yell at. The Communication and Detection Deputy Head Sakura hadn't even met—he was apparently rarely if ever even in the village—but she was reliably informed that he was a scatterbrained Shimura who "meant well."

And then there was the Human Research and Engineering Head.

At least, Sakura thought, at least he didn't work in her building.

Orochimaru could instead be found with most of the rest of that particular Research subdivision: at the hospital, with their own private labs and as little overhead as the rest of the Research Division.

He was…

He was…

He was, Sakura supposed, surprisingly normal.

She didn't know what she had been expecting, but what few times she ran into him he was as dismissive as the rest of the researchers were of her. He argued his points well, his handwriting was neat enough that she had no problem getting it wherever it needed to go, and he didn't intentionally leave messes with the knowledge that she would have to clean them up.

He was, if anything, one of the more likeable researchers.

But she still knew—still remembered—still foresaw—

She wondered if it was a question of him not yet being like that, or a question of him being so good at hiding his actions that no one could tell.

He was only 21, to be fair.


	22. Genin, Back Home, Part 2

_Please leave a comment or PM if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns. Also, I'm in need of a beta for this story- someone who knows Naruto far better than I do. If you want to, please PM me._

* * *

Sakura woke up dreaming of Romans.

She still hadn't figured out an easier way of sorting through Arden's memories than simply grabbing onto one and absorbing it, as quickly as possible, into the organized section of her brain, in the hopes that eventually the sea of memories would drain to the point that she would get to what little of her world that Arden had been aware of.

The method was tedious, took a significant amount of time, and was difficult to control—there was little she could do to determine the theme of the nightly memories.

Tonight's was apparently Romans.

Arden knew a lot about Romans. She knew of their levying system, of their politics, of their wars and peaces and illusions of both. She knew what they ate, knew what they drank, they what clothes they wore and what clothes they didn't. There were laws, too, so many laws, and myths, and histories, and poems, and combinations thereof, and there were battle strategies and war strategies and relationship strategies and, to top it all off, dozens of threads of more information connected to them (Greece, for instance; the "Renaissance" too, and Britain, and, again, hundreds of others)

Sakura hadn't even been able to get through a tenth of the Roman section, but at least she had somewhat reduced the size of that strand of memories.

The Romans were interesting, she supposed, and fascinating and probably something that would give her ideas to write in her notebook later, but it wasn't immediately helpful.

War was (probably) coming.

Arden knew of the exact war that was coming, knew of the combatants and the winners and maybe other details too.

Why couldn't she remember any of Arden's memories about that?

Orochimaru was only growing in power.

How about any recollections to find evidence for that?

Death and destruction was around the corner.

Why could she only find the memory of the death and destruction instead of what had caused it, what could be done to stop it?

Instead she got Romans.

Fascinating, again, but not necessarily useful.

.

Given what Sakura and everyone else had learned during the Spring Session (which had been reiterated by the emissary that attended Lightning's Summer Session) it was no surprise that, no matter what the Daimyo said, Konoha decided to move to war footing.

They did do it slowly, though, because apparently insubordination at the pace of a snail was better than insubordination at the pace of a cheetah.

For reasons.

Some of the differences were small—there was a greater recruitment push, for one, and many children across the Fire Nation who would normally not be actively pursued for shinobi life were. There was also an increased amount of training against Iwa tactics, against Earth techniques and terrain and organization.

Other preparations were more overt.

Konoha, for instance, took pains to reiterate each and every promise of protection they had with smaller states. In addition the village also called an impromptu census; knowing exactly how many resources they had was suddenly very important. For related reasons production began to slowly (oh so slowly) ramp up—Sakura found herself running around more and more every month, delivering messages between factories and research labs as brand-new inventions were built, tested, revised, and built again. New posters found their way onto various walls too: posters encouraging food rationing and preservation, picking up extra shifts, and Konohagakure nationalism. By fall everyone knew that war might be around the corner, that those in the know saw the signs they didn't want to see.

By fall everyone was individually preparing for war.

Clans and private factories alike ramped up production (Akimichi farms were doing their best to double theirs within half a decade); even toymakers began working overtime with the knowledge that the second war came they'd be using their skills in a different manner. Individuals, too, were listening to the propaganda, saving what they could and cutting down where they could as children played "bash the rock" and old grannies knitted bandages for the hospital.

The Daimyo said that war wasn't coming.

Konoha didn't listen.

By and large, however, shinobi life continued as usual: it was one thing to know war was coming, but until a date was added the people of Konoha (civilian and ninja alike) would hope that this would be yet another false alarm.

For Team 18, despite more direct evidence of the likelihood of _something_ on the horizon, this held true too. At least three days a week each member of chinmoku spent with their genin-work: Sakura's research, Juro's hospital internship (which was, according to him, two-thirds cleaning up puke and one-third sitting in a tiny room with a dozen other students memorizing every imaginable disease by rote), and Shin's…

Well, Shin had an internship.

He wasn't allowed to talk about it though, but that wasn't unusual: many genin assistants were banned from mentioning anything about the job, even the job itself, for about six months as a test.

Sakura could guess, but that was it.

Beyond their jobs as assistants, chinmoku filled their days with learning elemental manipulation (they were all fire natured, which was convenient but also not great in terms of diversity), walking on water (even moving water, which was hell), increasing weapon accuracy… just learning everything a chunin was supposed to know, because those skills would be beneficial in and out of a war.

Then there were the missions.

The missions sucked.

They were done with D-ranks, at least, but most C-ranks were equally as boring, given that the higher pay rate was due to the length of time or the amount of physical exertion or some other reason which had nothing to do with how interesting the mission was.

Sakura felt like she was going to tear out her hair every time they were sent to go capture yet another rabid animal. How many animals could there possibly be? (Not as many as reported, actually, so a good third of the time they were sent out it would turn out to be nothing, but unfortunately Fire had a rabies outbreak which lasted the entire summer, so the rest of the time...)

And then, of course, there was the month when, after three rabid squirrel missions in a row, they were sent to the Akimichi lands on a C-rank to capture a rogue cow who had evaded all other attempts for the past month and a half.

A cow.

A rogue pregnant cow, as it turned out, as they found her mid-birth.

At least the cow didn't have rabies.

A Thursday in mid-November found the trio standing, once more, in the mission office, with their Sensei standing directly in front of them.

Sakura had both hands behind her back, fingers crossed, as she prayed to every kami she could think of that there would be no animals involved in the mission. She didn't mind the background check missions—why couldn't they have more of those? Or one of the missions where they did a bunch of D-ranks in a town to boost public opinion. Those were boring, but didn't tend to involve poop. One of those would be nice. Bodyguard missions were good too, even if they rarely got those, or the more frequent border patrol missions; Sakura wouldn't even mind another public works mission, or a fire brigade mission—at this point even long term missions were ranked above animal capture.

"Sensei Mitokado Supaku. How are you?" The mission chunin was an Utatane with a wide grin who had ditched his original infiltration focus after losing a hand and eye when he was caught out. Nine times out of ten he was the one manning the desk, and he was chatty enough that, when dealing with other Senseis, the teams in line might have to wait as much as ten minutes between each assignment being handed out.

Sensei never even bothered to entertain him through pleasantries.

"Well."

"…I'm good too. Stubbed my toe this morning, though."

Sensei didn't answer.

"…Alright. So any mission preference? We have quite a few available today. A report of a rabid fox about a day's journey away, a background check for a family moving into the village, testing existing exploding tags for usability—oh! There's a trader who—"

"C-rank adjusted, please."

The chunin blinked. "Oh, yeah, okay." He shuffled a few papers around, then looked up and began reciting: "you are aware that, given the career paths of your genin, such a mission is not necessary, only strongly recommended?"

"Hai."

"You understand that, with the exception of a declaration of war, your students will be required to take a full week off from any missions, including any ongoing genin jobs?"

"Hai."

"Alright. We'll match you up with an existing team, then. Team 25 is leaving to clear out a bandit camp in about an hour, meeting at the front gate. I'll send a message to them, and you can meet them there. The Sensei is Inuzuka Aiko."

"Alright." Sensei whipped around to face chinmoku, unrolling the mission scroll as he did, and Sakura blinked.

"What—"

"We'll be going northeast, likely experiencing light rain. Pack for a trip of approximately a week. Go."

They went.

Based on context, however, the purpose of the mission was still clear:

They were about to get their first kills.

Sakura, along with what she would normally pack, shoved in her childhood stuffed caterpillar (made ratty by age, but simple enough in design that it was still in one piece), and tried to ignore her thoughts—

 _Don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go_

—so that she arrived at the front gate on time.

Why couldn't they go back to rabid squirrels? They were fine, really, and even if the rabies outbreak that had begun weakening in October, well… rabies didn't ever go completely away, did it? So surely her team could be sent to hunt _something_.

Just not people.

She was at the front gate.

By Juro's and Shin's expressions, they had also been able to deduce the purpose of their first combat focused C-rank.

"Ready?" Shin asked, looking both sympathetic and very, very empathetic.

"No. You?"

Shin shrugged. "Have to be, don't I?"

Juro looked a bit green. "Do you think they'll scream? Beg us to stop?"

"Not if we do it fast enough." Shin said.

He'd always been the most pragmatic of them.

"I packed a stuffed animal." Sakura said.

"I should have done that." Juro said. Then, "I packed extra food. Different flavors, too, in case any of them don't sit well after…"

"My sister says after your first time burning bodies it's hard to eat meat for a while." Shin said.

Sakura really, really hoped they'd just be allowed to bury them.

"All packed?" Sensei said, appearing behind Shin.

Chinmoku nodded.

"Alright. Let's meet the team we'll be working under."

Sakura had never met Sensei Inuzuka Aiko before, but she recognized the name; Yasuo was one of her genin, along with two other boys Sakura barely knew. She was, in person, an incredibly tall woman with almost no hair and a vicious looking dog standing beside her.

Even chinmoku's sensei—a tall man himself—was barely taller than her.

It seemed sometimes like everyone was tall, but then that might have just been because Sakura was so short.

"Have you ever worked on a combined team before?" She asked.

Chinmoku shook their heads.

"Well, we're in charge—we're the ones with the expertise. Each of my genin will be in charge of one of you each, and for the duration of this trip their word is law. It'll be a simple mission: I'll set the pace, we'll get there tomorrow around noon, kill, then get back. If you need to stop, speak up. I'd rather take a break for you to puke in a bush than for you to break your leg while trying to puke running. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Right, figure out your pairs."

Yasuo and the other two boys turned towards her, Juro, and Shin.

"How do you want to split up?" One of the boys—an Uchiha, Kenji if she remembered correctly, asked.

"Juro's our medic," Sakura answered, "Shin can use shadows but he's best long range, and I'm a sensor."

"Yasuo's in front until I get my eyes," the Uchiha answered, "so you go with him. He's a standard short to midrange fighter and has just started training with a suntetsu. He's a sensor, too. Juro, you'll be with me—I'm taijutsu and ninjutsu, and Shin you'll be with Takahashi—he uses a Fukiya with poisons on the darts—only mild, for now, but try not to get hit."

Sakura nodded, and the rest of her team dispersed.

Less than ten seconds later they were out of the gate, racing through the trees in a straight path to the last reported location of the camp.

They moved too quickly to waste air talking, so the journey was silent until, at last, Sensei Inuzuka called a halt.

"We're about to lose our light, so we'll stay here for the night. Help my genin with their designated tasks. We'll leave at dawn tomorrow morning, so have a large dinner—we won't be eating again until the bandit camp's dealt with."

She and Sensei disappeared.

Yasuo's task, as it turned out, was water collection, so Sakura followed him back to the stream they'd passed a minute or two before rest was called.

"How are you holding up?" He asked, not quite looking at her as he did.

"Nothing's happened yet, has it?"

Yasuo rolled his eyes. "So?" The waterskins having been refilled, he sat. "Ask your questions. I know you have them, and I've done this before, you know. It's kind of my job."

Sakura sat beside him. "What—what will it, um—"

"The whole point of shinobi is to kill, you know?" Yasuo stared at the stream. "That's what we sign up for, to kill or help other people to kill. But it's… no one ever talks about _having done_ it, not really. I mean, immediately after, sure, and if there was a big bounty then obviously you have to so you can collect the bounty, but… no one talks about it. They talk around it easily enough, but never about it.

And now you don't even have to talk about it. You have to actually do it.

It'll be close range. Most killing—most of it is longer range, you know, by ninjutsu or exploding tag or something. But they want to make sure you can kill close range if you have to, so it'll be close range. For me, it was… I mean, the guy had a giant mace that he was swinging right at me. It was kill or be killed, really, and so I killed. The second time we snuck in on the camp while they were still asleep—that's how most are done, when they're done close range—we snuck in on them and slit their throats.

For me… it's not something I'll ever enjoy, but it helps to know that I agree that the deaths are necessary. Bandits kill, but they kill innocents—tradespeople and migrants and civilians visiting family. Their kills are selfish in nature; mine, ultimately, aren't. That said, most people, they pause."

"Pause?"

"Yeah, they… they're in the situation, you know, and it's time for them to kill, and they just—they can't do it. So then whoever they have as backup—if I hadn't killed that first time, it would have been Sensei—they protect you until you screw your head on straight enough to do it. I'll be your backup tomorrow."

"So you think I'll pause?"

"Probably, yeah. Honestly, Sakura, you… you never talk about the whole death thing. Like, no one does—I've said that already—but you're, you're even _more_ against it than most. You say you'd do it, because you know it would be the right thing to do, but I think once you're standing right next to the person you're supposed to kill…

Yeah, I think you'll freeze."

"And then unfreeze."

"And then… well, this camp has more than three bandits—seven to eight, going by reports. So you'll have multiple tries."

"How about Shin and Juro?"

"None of you are natural killers. Or at least you don't act like it. All of you—I think—are going to freeze, going to hesitate, going to need your backups to protect your ass until you psych yourself up enough to actually go through with it."

"Sorry."

Yasuo shrugged. "We're friends, right? And comrades, too. You protect me in the ways that work for you, and I'll protect you in the ways that work for me. And anyway, you might surprise me and, like, rip his head off barehanded or something."

"I'm definitely going to freeze tomorrow."

Yasuo nodded. "You are."

Sakura stood. "Juro packed some sweets, if you'd like a couple."

"Sounds good to me."


End file.
